
FRENCH SCHOOLS IN 
WAR TIME 




A souvenir of the visit to the schools of France presented by the Minister 

of Public Instruction 



REPORT 

OF A VISIT TO 

SCHOOLS OF FRANCE 

IN 

WAR TIME 



JOHN H. FINLEY 

Commissioner of Education of the State of New York 
and President of the University of the State of New York 



WITH MESSAGES TO THE UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES AND 
SCHOOLS OF AMERICA FROM THOSE OF FRANCE 



THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

1917 




THIS brief report of a 
very brief visit in 
France in the early 
summer of 1917 depicts 
the spirit that pervades 
the schools and univer- 
sities of France, rather 
than the methods of their 
teaching, partly for the 
reason that this seems 
more important to us en- 
tering the war than the 
pedagogical details, and 
partly because the unex- 
pected welcome which was 
everywhere given pre- 
vented one from seeing 
much of the daily routine 
of the schools. In one 
place, indeed (the birth- 
place of Jean Jacques 
Rousseau), a holiday was 
declared for the children 
after the early morning 
classes, that I might meet 
all the teachers of that 



At the right, school girls in a Iyce'e ; at the left, 
a procession of the faculties of the University of 
Caen 



city. Two rather dim 
pictures which have come 
since this report was sent 
to the press, and which are herewith reproduced, tell of a recep- 
tion in Normandy, but they also give intimation of the reception 
in other places, to one who was only an American visiting the 
schools of France in the period between President Wilson's 
famous message of April 2d, which was everywhere read in the 
schools, and the coming of the first American troops. 

The reader will find tfre general summary of the report in the 
first nine pages, but the teacher will, by reading a little farther, 
find some special suggestions. The most valuable part of the 



D8or-Mri8-2000 



5 

report, however, is to be round in the messages which were 
carried to France and those which they evoked — messages 
which together in themselves justified putting into permanent 
form the report of this journey, and which will make a unique 
document in our educational literature. I am particularly 
glad they can be published by The University of the 
State of New York, whose representative I was, for it is the 
institution of all in America most closely related in purpose 
and organization to the University of France, which embraces 
in its concern and control the institutions which ^1 visited. 

But I would ask the 
reader, both teacher and 
layman, to take the time 
before putting the book 
down, to glance through 
the epitomizing pages from 
99 to 103, for while they 
carry the title "L' Envoi, " 
they are but the preface of 
what I hope is to be writ- 
ten of our intellectual com- 
munion with France and 
other nations, both during 
the war and after, culmi- 
nating in a world uni- 
versity or academy, out 
on that strip where our 
men are fighting side by 
side. 

I append photographs 
of two or three messages 
that have come from 
lycees in the east of 
France, as an illustration 
of the exchange which is 
to bring closer together 
the children of the world 
who are to rebuild it. e , . . , ; „ _. , 

School girls in Caen, Normandy, receiving the 
J . H . F. Commissioner of Education of New York 





< 



<u 



E 
< 




A letter from a French school girl in Epinal 



v- 
CO 



FRENCH SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME 



"* HERE are two armies for the defense of our civilization. 
One is the Army of Present Defense; the other is the 
Army of Future Defense. 

We have for months that have run into years watched the 
former, marveling at its valors, sympathizing with its losses. We 
are now mobilizing and training our own forces to join in that 
defense on the crucial line, which civilization must hold. 

But this side of that line is the other army, pictured by M. 
Viviani, former Minister of Public Instruction in France, when he 
said: * Unless the military authorities forbid, the schools must 
everywhere be kept open. Thus it may be said that our * scho- 
lastic front ' follows everywhere the very line of the trenches, 
being never more than ten kilometers distant, often less than two." 

From the military front we have daily report. Hundreds of 
correspondents watch its every movement. The whole world, 
whatever its occupation, turns every morning to see what is 
happening there. 

But of the vast other army, in France alone twice or three 
times the first army in size, there are but meager reports. It is 
only when its teachers and pupils are mobilized into the first that 
we are likely to hear of them, either fighting in the trenches or 
helping in some specific way to give material aid or spirit to those 
who are exposing their lives to make the world a safe place for 
free human beings to live in. 

It was this second army, this " scholastic front," that, represent- 
ing a portion of our conscript Army of Future Defense — tens 
of thousands of teachers and millions of children — I went to 
France to see, in order that we might have some advice of those 
under whose tuitions the immortal valors of the first army have 
been nourished. 

Of the military front I shall not speak, for hundreds of Amer- 
icans permitted to visit that trenched strip (which I have called 

[5] 

D75r-Oi--2000 



* Everyman's Land " and which I hope is to give foundation for 
many international institutions of the new world democracy) 
have seen more than I of its heroisms and horrors, though I trav- 
eled the length of it from where it touches the English line, near 
St Quentin (whose spireless cathedral I could see) to St Die 
under the German guns, not more than a half-dozen miles from 
the " blue line of the Vosges," which marks the border between 
France and its lost Alsace — St Die, to which I made a pilgrim- 
age (behind camouflage for many miles of the way) because it 
was there that the name " America " is said first to have been put 
on the printed page. 

Tens, and I think hundreds, of thousands of men of that Army 
of Present Defense I saw in ceaseless stream of blue, flowing to 
and from the front under skies stained by the enemy's menace 
and over fields planted with danger, or dotted with graves, but 
there is nothing to say of them that the world does not and will 
not know as long as history tells her story. My one envy in life 
is of those who are permitted to take their places in that line. 

And I must quote in passing from it to the other front the letter 
of a girl in one of the lycees that I visited — the lycee where 
General Gallieni had his quarters for a time early in the war — 
a letter which in one paragraph graphically depicts the distance 
by which the millions on either side of that narrow, trenched 
strip are separated, and in the second intimates the closeness of the 
sympathy between France and America: 

Lycee Victor Duru\) 

It was only a little river, almost a brook; it was called the Yser. One 
could talk from one side to the other without raising one's voice, and the 
birds could fly over it with one sweep of their wings. And on the two 
banks there were millions of men, the one turned toward the other, eye to 
eye. But the distance which separated them was greater than that of the 
stars in the sky; it was the distance which separates right from injustice. 

The ocean is so vast that the sea gulls do not dare to cross it. During 
seven days and seven nights the great steamships of America, going at full 
speed, drive through the deep waters, before the lighthouses of France come 
into view; but from one side to the other hearts are touching. 

Odette Gastinel (Classc: 3me AtmeeSecondaire ) 



Fac simile of a letter from a French school girl 

Ce net a it qunne hettte riviere, 
hre^que un. ruxsseau ; on I a(i|tclait 

I jser ; oa se jiarlait ditix Lord a 

1 autre sans elever lavotx,du6 

oiseaiu la raiacfiieeaieiiL dun 

nattemoiL dalle . ut sur les 
aeii*x rives , ilvj avail de6 iruluons 

(1'liom.m.es , totunes Us wis vers 
les attires , les ticux dans les xjcujc 
Mais la distaace am les 5C(iaratt 
eta.lt plus Jran.de cjue la distance 
des etolles dans le ciel ; c'etalt 



t ) 



ccue cj-iix sen are le droit d 



lie cjtLL seh 

1 mi notice . 



!) 



L ocean est si vasle ,cme les 

moiuttcs n'osent lias le traverser 
lend a at sejit lonrs cl sent 

fruits Us grands hacmebots 
d\n mem clue , lances <a to ale 
vapeur , decfiireru- lean v\ro-ondc 

avant d'ajiercevoLr les jmares 
decJrance m flais cTita })or<l 



a l'aatre / les coears se loucli 

OcfcHc Scislinci . 



eiiL 



Classe : j ; dnnee secou dair 



c 



But the other Army whose first lines are within sound and 
range of the guns ! — One covets the eloquence of a Viviani 
(such as that with which I heard him speak in the French Senate 
of his journey to America) to tell of its no less heroic endurances 
and achievements and of its vital importance to the future of 
France which the present valors of her people are revealing to the 
world and defending against destruction. 

When one hears that more than four thousand teachers of 
those in France 1 who have been called from the Army of Future 
Defense to that of Present Defense have been cited for military 
valor, one can believe that the same heroic spirit pervades the 
entire teaching body of France and that the remark of the 
Rector of the University of Nancy (to anticipate for a moment 
my visit) was warranted. I had been looking at the broken walls 
of an elementary school, wrecked by a shell which fell upon it in 
the midst of a morning's session. The master of the school, when 
the shells began to fall near the school building, timed the interval 
between the first shells, got his children in line for marching and 
then the moment a third or fourth shell fell, marched them to a 
building seventy paces away that had a cellar with stout walls. 
The next shell penetrated the school building and would doubtless 
have killed or maimed all the children had they remained. I said 
to the Rector that this teacher should have been given the Croix de 
Guerre. * No," said the Rector (and this is the remark), " No, 
any teacher in France would have done this ; " — which recalls a 
sentence from the first report of the present Director of Elemen- 
tary Education after the beginning of the war, to the effect that 
the teachers having been accustomed before the war to think con- 
tinuously of the good of their pupils were kept even in the 
trenches from egotism and selfishness (" sont facilement arraches 
a Vegotisme "). 

And I find better figure than my own in the tribute of this 
gentle Director (M. Lapie) whom I found in his office in 



1 Thirty thousand men were callecTfrom the elementary schools alone at the beginning of the 
war, and of course many thousands later. 



8 

the Rue de Grenelle, but in daily touch with this " scholastic 
front:" . :;$g 

" We admire, not without reason, the serenity of the farmer 
who, two steps from the battle line (a deux pas de la bataille) 
is sowing for the future his grain on the bloody furrows. [And 
many such farmers or farmers' wives I saw on those furrows, 
while the little puffs of smoke showed that the enemy was in their 
skies] . Let us admire none the less these teachers who, all along 
the line of fire, hold their classes within sound of the cannon : they 
also are sowing for the future." 

Again and again in my journey there came to me the saying 
of Voltaire: ' The spirit of France is the candle of Europe." 
Voltaire saw it glowing in peasants' huts, and he would see it 
now in the trenches were he in France today ; but I saw its flame, 
too, in the dim-cloistered places of learning, in the halls of the 
lycees and even in little and meagerly furnished rooms of the 
schools of France, which except for its light would have seemed 
sad and somber places. 

And one could but recall, too (one must add in this connection) 
what Voltaire said further in speaking of this candle of Europe, 
as if in divination of what has come to pass. You English," 
he said, "(nor all others) can not blow it out. . . And you 
English will be its screen against the blowing out, though in 
spasms of stupidity you flaunt the extinguisher." 

The winds, savage in temper and fury beyond any that have 
ever blown over the earth, have been driving across France from 
the northeast, winds that have razed villages to dust, that have 
felled trees by thousands in the fields, that have poisoned waters 
with their breath, that have shown no respect for schools or hos- 
pitals or churches, that have not only denuded the fertile earth in 
their path, but have torn it so that it will not for years, if ever, 
be able to support life. But despite all this, the spirit of France, 
the candle of Europe, is unquenched. 

France has restricted the use of food, fuel and light; she has 
discouraged travel except for reasons of necessity ; she has mobil- 
ized every able-bodied man for present defense; but she has not 



for one moment forgotten her future defense. She has even 
opened schools in caves and occasionally provided teachers and 
pupils with gas masks; she has put women by thousands in the 
places of men teachers called to the front; she has received back 
into service many men with marks of honor upon their breasts who 
have been incapaciated by wounds, to teach again in the schools 
they had left. Indeed I have seen many hundreds of children 
from the occupied territory being taught in casernes (barracks) 
by their women teachers who had fled with them. But she has 
not except under compulsion of cannon and bombs taJ^en from any 
child that heritage in which alone is the prophecy of an enduring 
nation. 

The able-bodied men of France are fighting in the first army 
to preserve the candle that holds the flame, but the teachers are 
fighting as valiantly in the other to make the candle worth the grim 
game — this candle of Europe which has become the candle 
of civilization. 

Lest the reader may not follow my journey through its more 
than two thousand miles, by day and by night, by rail, by military 
car and on foot, I give my conclusion before I begin — the advice 
which France, out of her physical anguish but unabated aspiration 
of spirit, sends to us from her " scholastic front." It is this: M Do 
not let the needs of the hour, however demanding, or its burdens 
however heavy, or its perils however threatening, or its sorrows 
however heart-breaking, maf^e you unmindful of the defense of 
tomorrow, of those disciplines through which the individual may 
have freedom, through which an efficient democracy is possible, 
through which the institutions of civilization can be perpetuated 
and strengthened. Conserve, endure taxation and privation, 
suffer and sacrifice, to assure to those whom you have brought 
into the world that it shall be not only a safe but also a happy 
place for them.' 9 

Not that France has put this advice into words. She would 
consider that presuming. It is the advice of her doing that I have 
attempted to translate. 



10 

When she made plans for the care of the wounded in school 
buildings at the beginning of the war, it was from sheer necessity ; 
there were not enough hospitals. But as soon as the blesses could 
be cared for elsewhere, the children were brought back to the 
schools, the lycees were filled up again, as the statistics show. It 
was only the universities whose men students and many of whose 
professors were mobilized for the Army of Present Defense that 
had decimated ranks. (In Nancy, for example, I found that 
there were only ten students in the School of Medicine — four in 
the first year, three in the second, two in the third, and one in the 
fourth — and these were women, foreigners and reformes.) 
France has kept open her schools, even her universities (for her 
professors have all found some war service in the lessened demand 
of their classes) with the persistence of an intuitive devotion to 
the things of the mind. It is as if the winning of the war 
depended upon going on with the educational processes. 

Here are a few incidents of my own observation or experience 
which testify of that devotion : 

The day after my arrival I was invited by the Minister of 
Public Instruction to meet him at an early hour the following 
morning — half past eight, which was really half past seven for 
they had moved the clocks forward an hour — and to accompany 
him and others in the special inspection of an exhibition which had 
just been opened to show that which I went to France primarily 
to see, namely, the work of the children in the schools during 
war time. I did not understand fully the import of his invitation, 
but when I arrived at the appointed place in the early morning, I 
found that it was the President of the French Republic who was 
to make the inspection, accompanied by the Minister of Public 
Instruction and other educational officials. There were in this 
exhibition photographs of unusual conditions under which schools 
were conducted, as at Rheims. There were photographs showing 
new activities, as physical training, medical inspection, sewing 
and knitting for the soldiers and agricultural work There were 
samples of placards used throughout the schools in making appeals 



11 

for subscriptions to loans (such as our Liberty Loans) or for 
gold. There were memorials to teachers killed in the war ; there 
were scores of designs in expression or stimulation of patriotic 
spirit; there were hundreds if not thousands of composition books 
relating to the war, and almost all of them illustrated by the 
pupils; and there were great charts showing programs of school 
activities in war time. There were also copies of letters written by 
children in the French schools to children in the United States, 
and letters themselves sent in return by American school children. 
(And I fear, from one or two examples at which I glanced in the 
wake of the President that the latter were not as well composed or 
written in English as those that I examined in French.) I shall 
not forget with what solemn dignity and close examination 
President Poincare and his official companions testified of their 
deep concern for the schools and of their conviction as to the 
supreme importance of education even in war time. 

A second incident significant of this same attitude of the French 
mind toward education happened a day or two afterward, in those 
latter days of May when things were not the brightest for France. 
This incident was a " seance " held in the amphitheater of the 
Sorbonne in the presence of the President of the Republic. The 
Minister of War, Painleve (later the Premier), formerly a 
professor in the Sorbonne, was one of the speakers, and the meet- 
ing was attended by thousands of men and women, some of whom 
stood for two hours or more. One unfamiliar with the language 
might have assumed that it was a great service to cheer on the 
Army of Present Defense, but while no one could long keep one's 
thought away from the trenches, whose cannon could almost be 
heard, this great popular assemblage was held to pay homage not 
to a soldier but to a great teacher and scientist, M. Berthelot; and 
after the meeting in tribute to him had ended with a mighty 
chorus of song, thousands of school boys marched in the street 
past the monument unveiled in his honor, one troop carrying an 
American flag. To certain minds outside of France, it may have 
seemed a sign of inefficiency that the President of the Republic 



12 

and the Minister of War should take hours, even of a holy day, 
in war time to pay homage to a teacher; but it is, at any rate, 
indicative of the intellectual habit of France. 

There is another illustration. One June day. among the somber 
affiches upon the hundreds of official bulletin boards containing 
official announcements and war appeals, there appeared a bright- 
colored poster showing a French child on the way to school with 
a drawing portfolio under her arm. It was an announcement of 
an exhibition of the work in design (dessin) of the children of 
the Seine, and except for the large-lettered words, " pendant la 
guerre," one might think that the poster itself had been carried 
over from the days of peace. I have been hoping to bring this 
exhibit, or a part of it, to the United States 1 as an intimation not 
only of what the children of France normally do in design, but 
also of what varied expression they find for their patriotic spirit. 
And it is this attempt at individual expression that is the chief note 
of all the training in France. It is not possession but expression. 
Intellectual exercise, in the higher ranges at any rate, seems the 
supreme joy of accomplishment, and in all ranges perfect expres- 
sion seems the common aim. 

One further illustration : a few days before General Pershing's 
arrival (and as one of the great crowd that filled the streets I 
saw with what genuine enthusiasm and instant admiration the 
people welcomed him) , I was permitted to visit a museum of art 
which even in those anxious days before his coming the men of 
France were preparing with such help as they could find from 
those who could not fight. Seventy-five miles away the trench 
warfare was going on night and day. And, only a few miles 
nearer, Carrel and others were mending bones and healing as by 
magic the wounded. Here in the midst of Paris, this new museum 
was being prepared for the gathering of Rodin's sculptures. 
These men representing France had refused even in the face of 
the world's most savage recrudescence to give up those arts in 
which the race has found loftiest expression. 



This collection is now on the way to America. 




The Grand Amphitheater of the Sorbonne 



13 



In addition to the unspoken general advice which I have 
extracted from France's doing if not from her lips, there are these 
specific suggestions that I have gathered from my rather hurried 
visitation of the schools of various grades : 

1 Emphasis upon the acquisition and accurate use of the lan- 
guage of the nation. (France is a one-language country, but the 
ability of all classes to use that language, in written form or in 
speech, makes one feel that even we who have inherited in our 
tongues the speech in which our laws and history are written, 
have need to give more attention to its better common use.) I 
was amazed by the composition and penmanship of the letters 
that I saw, as for example, in the Bureau of the Fatherless Chil- 
dren of France, where thousands are received, many of them from 
peasant mothers of children to whom American children were 
giving aid. And I think I may say in passing that this exchange 
has more than any other agency, except President Wilson's mes- 
sage, brought the children of France to know America. 

2 The intensive teaching of the few elementary subjects in the 
first six years. The great mass of children in France have only 
these six years, but I should infer from what I saw and heard 
that they were more thoroughly trained in the elementary subjects 
than the mass of our children even in a longer period of years. 
This is due perhaps to the fact that there is greater concentration 
upon these few subjects and that education is taken very seriously 
by the parents as well as by the teachers themselves. At present 
there are about six million children in the elementary schools of 
France, whereas the total number enrolled in what are known 
as the higher primary schools and supplementary courses, is only 
a little beyond one hundred thousand, and in the lycees about 
the same number, that is, about two hundred thousand beyond 
the ecole primaire. It should be said, however, that the percen- 
tage of illiteracy is higher than in the United States. This is due, 
I suppose, to the fact that there is no central and uniform enforce- 
ment of attendance as in New York State. 

3 The teaching of every child to express itself, to some extent, 
at any rate, through drawing and singing. 



14 

4 The building upon the six years of elementary training of a 
three-year course in which the boy or girl may go toward his or 
her particular life work, this course corresponding roughly to 
what we have in mind under the name of " junior high school." 
As intimated above under paragraph 2, comparatively few boys 
and girls take this additional three-year course, known as the 
ecole primaire superieure, the attendance in these schools being 
only about 100,000 as compared with millions in the ecole 
primaire. There are intimations, however, that after the war 
there will be compulsory continuation schools. M. Viviani intro- 
duced a bill in the Chamber of Deputies during his ministry, 
carrying provisions similar to those embodied in England's new 
education bill. 

5 The most rigorous training of those who are selected or 
permitted to go on into secondary or higher training, that is, into 
the lycees and universities. 

6 The emphasis upon intellectual training for the full expres- 
sion of the individual rather than training for material possession, 
a characteristic of the French people perhaps because a character- 
istic of its teaching. 

7 And the teaching everywhere and in all manner of ways of 
the love of France. 

But for the most part, these are suggestions that would have 
been gathered before the war. There has been no outward change 
in the curriculum ; everywhere this was asserted. 

At the same time there have been changes in the interpretation 
and emphasis given to the old curriculum, and new activities have 
claimed the thought of teacher and pupil in holiday and after- 
school hours and even to some extent in the midst of their regular 
studies, such, for example, as the cultivation of the fields and 
gardens. There was, however, no nation-wide organization of 
such effort, no mobilization for the immediate aid of the Army of 
Present Defense except in the matters of helping by school chil- 
dren's contribution to care for the orphans, or by school sewing 
and cooking to send articles of need to the soldiers or of support- 
ing the national loans, or of the gathering of gold from the places 
of its hoarding. 






15 



There is growing an interest in physical training. A general 
physical training syllabus has been prepared for use in the schools, 
but that use is not compulsory. Here and there I found medical 
inspection and physical training going forward. 

Here and there I saw, too, some evidences of pre-military 
training under the patronage of a national organization but of 
private support. Military training is, however, not to be made a 
part of the public school training. The experiment which was 
attempted some fifteen years ago proved not to be a successful 
one, and now, as is known, every boy at 18 or 19 has to begin 
intensive military training. It is likely that after the war there 
will come universal compulsory physical training (such as New 
York now has), for the French are beginning to appreciate the 
value of giving attention to the health education of the child. 

But in one cause the children of France were mobilized, as 
intimated above and as the following statement concerning the 
second loan will show: 

In every lycee, college and school of France, during the second fortnight 
of October, the work of the classes was directed to showing the importance 
of the great duty that the country laid upon her children. Reading lessons, 
compositions, Latin versions even were turned into means for explaining 
the necessity of the loan, its mechanism, its advantages. All the masters 
made their pupils learn " The appeal to the French," an ardent passage 
from the speech pronounced in the Chamber of Deputies, on September 1 4, 
1916, by M. Ribot, financial minister. 

In certain departments, at the October session of the C. E. P. (certificat 
d'etudes primaires), the primary inspectors set the young candidates ques- 
tions relative to the loan, and thus assured themselves that the efforts of the 
teachers had not been in vain. 

The drawings of Rabier and more particularly of Hansi had been dis- 
tributed by millions and had rendered the lessons pleasant and easy. The 
master commented the text and developed the idea. Thus through the 
child he reached the family, to which the pupil carried the direct and full 
echo of his master's sentiments and voice. 

Artistic posters on the walls of the classrooms were an incessant appeal 
to duty and a stimulative of energy and hope. 



And a few days before the loan was closed, M. Paul Pain- 
leve, Minister of Public Instruction, addressed the following 



16 

eloquent and vigorous appeal to the members of the teaching 
profession : 

In a few days the subscriptions to the loan will be closed. The con- 
fidence and patriotism of the country have fully responded to the appeal of 
Government; but it is essential that the financial power of France should, 
after two years of war, affirm itself as victoriously as the power of her arms. 

It is on our schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, it is on the teachers in 
all the grades of our education, it is on their moral authority, on their ever 
persuasive and effective propaganda, that it is incumbent to urge the back- 
ward to their duty. He who is capable of subscribing to the loan and does 
not subscribe, is a deserter: he abandons his brothers at the front. Far 
from shortening the war, as an infamous movement claims, he prolongs it: 
if he does not rob us of victory, which can no longer escape us, he makes 
her approach more slow and sanguinary. 

In penetrating the souls and hearts of our youth with these truths, our 
masters do not accomplish a merely educational task. Their influence 
spreads far beyond the walls of their classrooms. Numerous as are the 
schools which have agreed to contribute directly to the defense of the 
country, it is not by the sums paid into the treasury that the magnitude of 
the duty accomplished is to be measured, but rather by the value of the 
example and its echo in all classes of the nation. 

The National Assembly used to accord the honors of the sitting to the 
deputations from schools bringing their money to the country in danger. 
Such deputations would be innumerable today. 

To establish a lasting souvenir of this patriotic effort, I have decided, 
in agreement with the Minister of Finance, to give a diploma of honor to all 
the educational establishments which have contributed to the national loan. 
Each of the young subscribers will further receive a smaller diploma certify- 
ing that, rich or poor, child or youth, he has made his offering to furnish the 
arms of his seniors with still more powerful weapons for the decisive 
victory. 

Here is a direct precedent for the campaign which was carried 
on by the schools of the United States in support of the second 
Liberty Loan. 

And it is reported that in response there was not a lycee, col- 
lege, normal school, or higher primary school that did not sub- 
scribe. Even the primary schools made general and generous 
response. I have seen many letters from teachers and school 
children which give intimation of what was done both inside 
through direct subscription and outside of the schools in soliciting 
subscriptions for the loans by the townspeople. One instance is 



17 



especially appealing because of the commonplace detail of the 
sacrifice which it reveals: 

At Plemeleuc, a little village of Ille-et-Vilaine, a peasant addresses Mile. 

D , the schoolmistress: " Mademoiselle, you tell me to invest, but do 

you do so yourself? " " My friend," she answers, " since we have been 
at war, you have not seen me spend a penny on a toilette, a hat, a dress, 
anything. I am going to make my last year's hat do just as it is for this 
winter, and you know I am not grasping. But I prefer to give a soldier a 
gun than to buy myself a dress." And the peasant brought in all his 
savings as a subscription to the national loan. 

I have, however, brought back not only this general and 
specific advice of France to us, but also eloquent messages, in 
answer to those that I carried over, from every one of the univer- 
sities of France that I visited — and I visited all save the smaller 
universities of Besangon, Aix, Clermont, and the lamented Lille 
which was still back of the German lines, though many of her 
professors and students were scattered over other parts of France. 
Some of them I met at Paris at a " tea " given late at night, 
following an ancient custom; and one I found in Poitiers — 
shepherds who had found new flocks. One of her professors had 
even gone to far-away Algiers; and Angellier, her great poet- 
teacher who had clung to Lille in the days before the war rather 
than go to a professorship in the University of Paris, had been 
saved by death from even anticipating the fate of his beloved city 
though he saw the * blackbirds homing to cathedral towers.*' 
The Rector (M. Lion) was, however, still in Lille, so I was 
told, ministering to the schools. 

But I must first say a word concerning the messages which 
I had the high honor to bear across the ocean to the Universities 
and schools of France. I went by authorization of the Regents 
of The University of the State of New York whose organization 
and function most nearly of all our state systems of education in 
this country where education is a state function, resemble the all- 
embracing University of France, which was, however, established 
nearly a quarter of a century after The University of the State of 
New York. But it was my great privilege to be entrusted with 



18 

messages of amity, greetings from more than one hundred twenty 
colleges and universities, as well as from President Wilson, 
Governor Whitman, and from others of our foremost representa- 
tive American citizens. These were as the " prodrome * of 
what the universities and colleges and schools of America have 
since been sending or preparing to send from their campuses to give 
glorious confirmation to the utterances of these letters from univer- 
sity presidents, resolutions of faculties and student bodies, a collec- 
tion to which I gave the title taken from President Butler's letter; 
1 To the Flower of France and therefore to the Flower of 
Modern Civilization," — a collection which the great French 
philosopher best known in America called a " Golden Book," 
and which I have recently been advised has been printed by the 
French government and distributed throughout France. 1 I was 
but the courier for these messages, which I think were of distinct 
moral aid to the people of France in the dark days before the 
arrival of the first American troops. 

The summary of this precious collection (and I am doubting 
if one more eloquent or significant was ever carried between the 
schools of the two republics), I presented at all the university 
centers that I visited (Paris, Nancy, Dijon, Lyons, Grenoble, 
Montpellier, Toulouse, Caen, Rennes, Poitiers and Bordeaux), 
and found such a welcome awaiting them that I was prevented 
from seeing as much of the routine work of the schools as I had 
hoped, for America had but lately come into the consciousness of 
the children of France and everywhere they were assembled with 
the cry of " Vive l'Amerique " upon their lips. 

This summary, which I regret could not have included every 
message in its full text, follows in the form which it was given 
in translation. It is gratifying that the French government 
through its Maison de la Presse has made it possible for these 
greetings of America to be heard in every corner of France. 



1 Copies of the French version have just reached America. 



MESSAGES 



DES ' 



UNIVERSITES, COLLEGES & ECOLES 



DES 



ETATS-UNIS 
D'AMERIQUE 



AU 



MINISTRE DE L'INSTRUCTION PUBLIQUE 



ET AUX 



UNIVERSITES, LYCEES & £COLES 



DE FRANCE 



PRESENTES PAR LE 



Docteur JOHN FINLEY 

Directeur de I'Enseignement et 
President de I'Unioersite de I'Etat de New-York 



191 7 



A la fteur de la FRANCE 
cest a dire a la fleur 
de la Civilisation Moderne. 

Quand je vins en France, il y aura bientot sept ans, c'etait dans le but 
d'y rappeler une page d'histoire, momentanement oubliee peut-etre, je le 
craignais du moins. Aujourd'hui, j'y viens prendre une lecon. Je rap- 
pelais alors la valeur et les sacrifices de ces pionniers et de ces explorateurs 
de France, pretres et soldats, qui donnerent a l'humanite une nouvelle 
nation: l'immense territoire s'etendant des monts Alleghany jusqu'au dela 
du grand Mississippi, qui fut " La Nouvelle-France " et qui est aujourd- 
'hui le " Heart of America ", le coeur meme de l'Amerique. J'evoquais 
cette admirable epopee ecrite par la France comme une preface glorieuse 
et dramatique aux chapitres de l'histoire de notre pays, evoquees aujourd- 
'hui, chez vous comme chez nous, avec une emotion profonde et dans 
lesquels les noms de La Fayette, de Rochambeau, de De Grasse et de 
Beaumarchais, figurent aupres de ceux de Washington, de Franklin et de 
Jefferson. Cette epopee splendide de Jacques Cartier de Saint-Malo, de 
Samuel Champlain de Brouage, du Pere Marquette de Laon (dont la 
mere etait de Reims), de M. de La Salle de Rouen, et de cent autres qui 
avec eux donnerent leur vie pour la France et qui, en meme temps, 
revelerent au monde et ouvrirent a la civilisation la plus vaste et la plus 
fertile vallee de la terre. 

Ces hommes dont j'evoquais le souvenir il y a sept ans, afin que votre 
pays et le mien en gardassent un culte vivant, nous apparaissent maintenant 
comme les precurseurs des Francais d'aujourd'hui qui se sont reveles d'une 
valeur incomparable, et c'est pourquoi je viens aujourd'hui visiter les ecoles 
ou ces admirables qualites ont ete developpees, afin de savoir ce que nous 
autres Americains devons faire pour devenir des camarades dignes de vous 
dans la lutte supreme pour la liberte humaine. Car, certainement, le 
systeme d'education qui a donne a la France la place que le monde entier 
lui recommit doit etre compris et imite. 

Au cours de ma premiere visite, dans une conference a la Sorbonne, je 
citais une invocation a la France faite par un de ses fils, Lescarbot, il y a 
trois cents ans, quand il se trouvait la-bas dans les parages deserts et sau- 
vages de l'Amerique du Nord. Les evenements actuels donnent a une partie 
de ce message un interet tout particulier: 

' Bel ceil de Tunivers, ancienne nourrice des Lettres et des 
Armes. . . II vous faut, dis-je, (6 chere mere!) faire une alli- 

[21] 



22 

ance imitant le cours du Soleil, lequel comme il porte chaque 
jour sa lumiere d'ici en la Nouvelle-France : ainsi, que continuelle- 
ment votre civilite, votre justice, votre pitie, bref, votre lumiere, 
se transporte la meme par vos enfants." 

Je suis venu chercher cette lumiere et apprendre ici quel est le devoir de 
la Nouvelle-France dans la lutte terrible que livre aujourd'hui la civilisation. 

Si c'est la le but principal de ma mission, je suis charge en outre, 
d'exprimer la profonde admiration que les professeurs et les etudiants 
americains eprouvent pour la France. J'apporte avec moi un dossier 
precieux, et en traversant l'ocean, j'avais pris mes dispositions pour l'assurer 
solidement autour de mon corps si notre paquebot etait torpille. C'est une 
collection de messages des universites et colleges qui fleurissent dans toutes 
les regions de notre pays, depuis les cotes du Maine, explorees par Cham- 
plain, jusqu'a ces cotes qui regardent la Chine et qu'il cherca a decouvrir, 
et des Grands Lacs du Nord que les bateaux de La Salle ont les premiers 
traverses, jusqu'a l'embouchure du grand fleuve dont il prit possession au 
nom de Louis XIV. Ces messages sont l'expression de la pensee de toute 
l'Amerique qui embrasse la cause pour laquelle la France a souffert au dela 
de toute imagination et a affermi sa place dans l'immortalite. 

Je viens avec un mandat DE L'UNIVERSITE DE L'ETAT DE 
NEW-YORK. Cette vaste organisation universitaire, fondee en 1 784, 
ressemble par l'etendue de son enseignement a votre Universite de France, 
et exerce son action sur plus de deux millions d'enfants et de jeunes gens. 
L' enseignement aux Etats-Unis n'est pas une institution nationale, mais 
il est particulier a chaque £tat. Si 1'Etat de New-York a pris l'initative 
de cette mission, c'est qu'il assume les plus lourdes responsabilites ayant le 
plus grand nombre d'eleves a instruire et les problemes les plus difficiles a 
resoudre, c'est que ses cotes sont plus voisines des votres, c'est que son 
commerce et ses sympathies le rendent plus proche de vous, c'est enfin 
qu'une oeuvre francaise, la statue de la Liberie, salue a l'entree de son port 
les navires qui reviennent de France. 

Le Gouvemeur de l'£tat de New- York m'a charge de remettre au 
President de votre Republique un eloquent message qui comprend la proc- 
lamation lancee pour celebrer dans tout l'£tat le "France Day": la 
" Journee de la France ". J'ai eu le privilege, en ma qualite de directeur 
de l'Enseignement, d'adresser cette proclamation aux douze mille etablis- 
sements scolaires de l'£tat et de designer comme date celle du 26 avril, qui 
marque a la fois 1'arrivee de la Mission francaise aux £tats~Unis et 
I'anniversaire de l'embarquement de La Fayette pour l'Amerique en 1777. 



23 

JOURNEE DE LA FRANCE 

/ 

(Proclamation du Gouvemeur de I'Etat de New- York) 

II convient que le pays reconnaisse toute l'importance du jour 
que marque un evenement si considerable dans Thistoire de notre 
patrie bien-aimee. Les £tats-Unis font maintenant partie de 
cette societe fraternelle de nations, unies et alliees pour assurer 
le triomphe de la democratic dans le monde. La premiere mani- 
festation de cette nouvelle union internationale est Tarrivee sur 
nos rivages d'une delegation officielle de la Republique-soeur 
composee d'eminentes personnalities civiles et militaires de France. 

La statue de la Liberte dans le port de New- York, le 
monument commemoratif erige en 1912 dans la vallee du lac 
Champlain, symbolisent le sentiment de la France a l'egard de 
TAmerique ; ce sentiment se manifeste aussi par la celebration de 
nos grandes fetes nationales dans la capitale de la France et par 
Terection de statues aux glorieux fondateurs de la liberte ameri- 
caine, Washington et Lincoln, et tout dernierement encore par 
Taffichage du message du President Wilson et la presentation du 
drapeau americain a toutes les ecoles de France. 

New- York ne manquera pas de profiter de l'occasion qui lui 
est offerte pour exprimer ses profonds sentiments de respect et 
d'admiration au principal champion de la liberte, a Tamie histori- 
que de TAmerique, a la patrie de La Fayette. Le jour choisi 
pour celebrer l'arrivee de ces delegues coincide heureusement 
avec Tanniversaire de l'embarquement de La Fayette a Bordeaux, 
lorsqu'il vint se donner tout entier a la cause de la liberte de 
notre propre pays. 

II est essentiel que nous concevions parfaitement les motifs 
depourvus de toute pensee egoiste et de tout desir de conquete 
qui nous ont pousses, en tant que peuple, a participer a cette 
guerre. Le message du President des £tats-Unis est la noble 
expression du sentiment intime de l'Amerique et des raisons aux- 
quelles la France a sacrifie les precieuses vies de milliers de ses 
fils, le travail de ses femmes et de ses enfants et les ressources de 
sa terre, 



24 

Le but de cette mission speciale est d'etablir d'amicales rela- 
tions entre les deux pays, ainsi que leur collaboration intime dans 
leur lutte commune. Suivant les resolutions du senat de l'£tat 
de New- York, je recommande que le 26 avril soit choisi comme 
la " Journee de la France ", et qu'il soit considere dans tout 
F£tat comme un jour de fete a l'occasion de l'arrivee de la mission 
francaise et en commemoration de Famine historique qui lie les 
deux nations. 

D'accord aussi avec le Commissaire special de l'£ducation, je 
recommande que, ce jour-la, le message du President soit lu 
dans toutes les ecoles de l'£tat, et qu'on y fasse solennellement 
connaitre toute Tetendue de nos responsabilites et le privilege qui 
nous est donne de pouvoir combattre aux cotes de la France et 
des Allies pour la cause de la liberte, de l'humanite et de la 
justice. 

Cependant, bien que je tienne mon mandat d'un seul £tat, le plus riche, 
il est vrai, en etablissements scolaires, les messages que j'apporte presentent 
vraiment un caractere national. 

Voici le salut de celui qui fut d'abord mon professeur, et dont je devins 
plus tard le collegue, comme professeur d'economie politique a l'Universite 
de Princeton, WOODROW WILSON, President des £tats-Unis. 

Au lendemain de mon debarquement, j'ai vu le President de votre 
Republique qui, laiss ant momentanement de cote les angoissantes questions 
de l'heure presente, a bien voulu, d'un esprit eclaire et bienveillant, me 
parler de la situation des enfants des ecoles elementaires pendant la guerre. 
De son cote, le President de la Republique de mon propre pays, dans 
l'intense activite des premiers jours qui ont suivi notre entree en guerre, a 
montre le sincere interet qu'il porte a cette mission, en me demandant 
d'apporter son " salut le plus cordial aux universiies el enfants des ecoles 
de France et a leurs maitres." 

Pareil interet de la part des Presidents des deux grandes Republiques 
fait bien ressortir l'importance primordiale des ecoles, surtout en ces jours de 
crise mondiale. 

C'est un grand privilege de vous apporter aussi l'expression de vibrante 
sympathie d'un de mes amis de longue date, l'ex-PRESIDENT ROOSE- 
VELT, qui, comme vous le savez, a ete le champion loyal et ardent de la 
grande cause pour laquelle vous combaltez depuis bientot trois ans. Quand 
je l'ai quitte a la veille de mon depart d'Amerique, il attendait avec impa- 



25 



tience dans 1'espoir de pouvoir venir lui-meme apporter son message a la 
France, le lui apporter dans les tranchees et lui donner toute sa valeur en 
faisant usage d'un langage qui en ce moment a une eloquence et une signifi- 
cation infiniment plus hautes que celui des mots. Vous me permettrez done 
de vous dire tout simplement que l'ex-President Roosevelt est avec vous de 
coeur et qu'il vous envoie son fraternel salut avec une foi profonde dans la 
cause de la civilisation et la certitude absolue du triomphe de la democratic 
J'ai recu de notre ancien President de la Republique, William H. Taft, 
le temoignage suivant de son admiration pour la France: 

'* Je suis enchante d'apprendre que vous allez porter aux uni- 
versities et aux ecoles de France un message des universites et 
colleges des £tats-Unis. Rien, au cours de cette guerre, n'a 
souleve une admiration aussi profonde et aussi emue que la ferme 
et magnifique determination, le calme du peuple francais dans la 
lutte terrible qu'il soutient pour sauver la France et pour detruire 
l'autocratie militaire qui continuerait a menacer la paix du monde 
si on lui permettait de vivre. Les universites americaines ne pou- 
vaient choisir pour une telle mission un meilleur representant que 
vous, et je me felicite que nous ayons un aussi admirable inter- 
prets de l'esprit fraternel que les universites et colleges de ce pays 
doivent manif ester aux universites de France." 

William H. Taft 

Je vous apporte aussi le message d'un de nos grands hommes d'£tat: 
' Dites, je vous prie, a vos amis des universites francais aux- 
quelles vous allez rendre visite, que la cooperation de TAmerique 
avec la France n'est nulle part plus sincere que dans ses efforts 
pour aider le nouveau gouvernement russe. Mais ce que nous 
pouvons faire est peu de chose, en regard de ce que peut faire la 
France. La longue et traditionnelle amitie entre la France et la 
Russie, les etroites relations entre les gens de Lettres de France et 
les intellectuels russes qui ont ete les precurseurs de la revolution, 
la dette d'honneur de la Russie envers le pays qui a fait de si ter- 
ribles sacrifices pour rester fidele a son alliance, tout cela doit 
donner a la France une grande influence sur le peuple russe. 
J'espere que cette influence va s'exercer activement et sans delai 



26 

pour enseigner aux chefs de F opinion russe cette maitrise de soi, 
cet esprit civique et desinteresse qui sont necessaires a l'etablisse- 
ment et au maintien d'un gouvernement democratique." 

Elihu Root 

II me faut maintenant citer en entier le message du professeur Barrett 
Wendell, de l'Universite Harvard, le premier des professeurs d'echange 
americains venus dans votre beau pays ou il a laisse de si bons souvenirs: 

* Le sens des evenements de ces dernieres annees devient si 
clair que les mots n'ajoutent plus rien a sa clarte. Mise a l'epre- 
uve comme jamais nation ne l'avait ete jusqu'ici, la France s'est 
montree plus magnifique que jamais. Au cours de toute sa 
grande histoire, aucune autre periode n'atteint a la supreme 
grandeur de la periode actuelle. L'endurance courageuse, 
patiente, inebranlable, que la France a montree, est la preuve 
d'une valeur nationale que rien ne saura jamais ternir. Meme 
si, ce qui semble maintenant impossible, la fortune des armes 
devait tourner contre elle, la victoire que Tesprit frangais a rem- 
portee dans le coeur du monde, resterait encore le plus haut geste 
de sa noble tradition. Aussi, est-il impossible d'exagerer Tim- 
portance de la joie solennelle avec laquelle nous, Americains, nous 
trouvons enfin dresses aux cotes de la France contre Tennemi 
commun de T Ideal de l'Humanite. 

Quand notre prochaine victoire aura definitivement rendu la 
paix au monde, c*est dans les universites francaises que les etu- 
diants americains trouveront la lumiere que trop souvent, dans le 
passe, ils ont cherchee en vain dans les tenebres des universites 
allemandes, et cela sera un des plus heureux resultats de notre 
victoire. Je salue done les universites francaises. . . 

Barrett Wendell 

Des messages con^us dans le meme sens auraient ete certainement envoyes 
par des milliers de nos maitres de la Pensee et de l'Action en Amerique, si 
tous avaient pu etre sollicites, mais le temps manquait car mon voyage avait 
ete hate au dernier moment par d'imperatives raisons professionnelles. 

Le jour ou je me suis embarque, les representants de six cents etablisse- 
ments d'enseignement aux £tats-Unis, s'etaient reunis a Washington pour y 



27 



deliberer sur ce que les professeurs et les eleves des universites, des colleges, 
des ecoles techniques et professionnelles ainsi que l'elite du monde des arts 
et des sciences pouvaient faire en commun pour servir le pays dans cette crise, 
Du president de cette conference, lequel siege egalement au Conseil con- 
sultant de la nation, j'ai recu le telegramme suivant, qui m'est parvenu 
quand nous etions deja en mer. 

' Nous, representants de 600 colleges et universites de la 
Republique Americaine, reunis a Washington pour conferer sur 
les devoirs qui nous incombent dans la situation presente, vous 
prions d'abord d'assurer les colleges et universites de France de 
notre profonde sympathie et de notre admiration pour les sacrifices 
heroiques qu'ils ont faits a la cause de la liberte et de la civilisa- 
tion, et de leur dire que nous nous engageons a travailler avec eux 
au maintien des traditions de la science et de Tenseignement, 
traditions que l'histoire de la France illustre d'une fa^on si 
frappante. Nous nourrissons le ferme et cher espoir que la cause 
de l'education sortira victorieuse des horreurs presentes, que les 
educateurs, guides par un ideal plus eleve encore, poursuivront 
plus resolument que jamais, leur ceuvre de perfectionnement de 
la vie morale et intellectuelle de la France, de TAmerique et de 
toutes les nations." 

II ne m'est pas possible de vous donner en entier les resolutions, lettres 
officielles et personnelles, telegrammes, cablogrammes qui me sont parvenus 
de tout le territoire des £tats-Unis pendant les quelques jours qui ont pre- 
cede mon depart ou que j'ai recus depuis mon arrivee en France. Avertis 
de la mission qui m'amenait vers vous, la grande majorite des etablisse- 
ments d'education de mon pays, parmi laquelle figurent les plus anciens 
et les plus renommes de nos colleges et de nos universites, m'ont charge de 
vous apporter l'expression de leurs sentiments. C'est pour moi un grand 
honneur et une grande joie que de vous transmettre plus de cent messages 
fraternels emanant de nos grands groupements d'etudiants, de membres les 
plus eminents de notre corps enseignant, de Presidents de facultes et d'uni- 
versites. Si elles different dans la forme, elles se rencontrent toutes dans 
une manifestation unanime d'admiration pour la France. Dans leur 
ensemble, elles constituent un temoignage emouvant d'amitie et d'admiration. 
Malgre l'hostilite sauvage et sans merci des sous-marins, ces fragiles feuillets 
qui vous montrent le coeur de l'Amerique battant a l'unisson des votres, 
ont pu aborder sur vos rives amies. 



28 

De tous ces messages, je commencerai par citer celui du Dr Nicholas 
Murray Butler, President de la grande Universite Columbia, a New- York, 
ou depuis des annees, vos conferenciers et vos professeurs ont recu raccueil 
le plus chaleureux: 

Je suis tres heureux que vous puissiez faire ce voyage, non 
seulement pour observer les repercussions de la guerre sur Ten- 
seignement dans la Republique Franchise, mais aussi pour trans- 
mettre en personne et de la maniere la plus intime, le salut affec- 
tueux de nous tous a ce noble corps des savants et des educateurs 
qui est la fleur meme de la France, et par consequent de la civili- 
sation moderne. Vous ne sauriez aller trop loin, ni vous etendre 
trop longuement, pour exprimer a nos amis et collegues de la-bas 
la profonde admiration que nous avons pour Tesprit frangais et 
pour la facon dont il se manifeste dans cette terrible crise de 
rhistoire universelle." 

Autant que possible, je presenterai ces messages dans l'ordre geograph- 
ique, en commencant par l'£tat du Maine, dont les cotes furent explorees 
par Champlain bien avant le debarquement des premiers colons anglais sur 
les rivages arides et semes de recifs de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Le pre- 
mier est celui du President de l'Universite de l'£tat, qui est aussi president 
de la grande societe composee des membres du corps enseignant de tous les 
£tats de l'Union: " L' Association Nationale d'Enseignement aux £tats- 
Unis." 

' Veuillez transmettre aux professeurs des universites de 
France les salutations cordiales des etudiants, anciens eleves, pro- 
fesseurs et membres du conseil d'administration de TUniversite du 
Maine. Nous les glorifions pour les sacrifices qu'ils ont faits. 
Nous sommes maintenant unis avec les universites franchises pour 
prendre notre part de tous les nouveaux sacrifices qui seront 
necessaires pour assurer une paix glorieuse et permanente. 

Les ecoliers et les instituteurs des £tats-Unis envoient a la 
France Texpression de leur admiration et de leur foi profonde 
dans Tavenir." 

Robert J. Aley 
President de V Association Nationale d'Enseignement, 
Recteur de V Universite du Maine 



29 



Voici la lettre d'un college de cet £tat d'ou sont sortis des citoyens 
eminents qui ont joue un grand role dans notre histoire: 

' Nous, corps enseignant et eleves du College Bowdoin, nous 
rejouissons de l'occasion qui nous est offerte, d'exprimer par vos 
bons offices, a nos sceurs les ecoles et les universites de France, 
notre reconnaissance et notre admiration constante pour les nobles 
sacrifices qu'elles font pour la cause commune, celle de la demo- 
cratic et de la liberte dans le monde entier. Ce matin meme, 
dans notre chapelle, Mme la baronne Huart nous parlait de 
l'heroisme de la France. 

Les etudiants de notre college se preparent activement au 
service militaire, et, avant longtemps, ils prendront place au front, 
cote a cote, avec les jeunes gens des ecoles et des universites de 

France." 

Wm. Dewitt Hyde 

Le corps enseignant et les eleves du Bates College ecrivent: 

* Les professeurs et les eleves du Bates College n'ont cesse de 
suivre avec le plus profond interet les diverses fortunes du vaillant 
peuple de France au cours de la lutte terrible qui se livre en 
Europe. La France a donne a tous les esprit eclaires, un 
exemple si extraordinaire de sagesse, de patience, de sentiment du 
devoir, de devouement, de patriotisme, d'hero'isme et d'abnega- 
tion, que les merveilleuses pages de son histoire en sont illuminees 
d'un eclat nouveau, et que les aspirations et les ideals du monde 
civilise en regoivent une vie nouvelle. Nous savons que, malgre 
leurs privations, leurs souffrances et leurs deuils, les Frangais, a 
quelque classe ou condition qu'ils appartiennent, sont en train 
d'acquerir pour eux-memes et pour toute l'Humanite eprise de 
liberte, avec une independance plus complete, une realisation 
plus belle de Tideal democratique. Nos sympathies vont tout 
droit aux professeurs, a la jeunesse et aux enfants de France. 
Nous esperons qu'ils supporteront jusqu'au bout les lourdes 
charges qui leur sont imposees, afin de trouver, a la fin de cette 
terrible lutte, le champ libre a leur influence et a leur action sur 



30 



la vie morale et intellectuelle du monde, et des conditions inhni- 

ment plus f avorables a leur developpement que les plus braves et 

les plus optimistes d'entre eux n'oseraient esperer." 

George C. Chase 

President 

A cote du Maine s'etend un £tat dont la chaine de montagnes boisees 
comprend, parmi ses sommets aux nobles et puissantes lignes, le mont Wash- 
ington et le mont Lafayette. Le principal etablissement d'education de cet 
£tat est un des etablissements historiques de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, le 
College Dartmouth, ou notre grand Daniel Webster fut eleve. Voici le 
message qui nous est envoye par son President: 

" Ce college, qui compte quinze cents etudiants, se prepare 
activement a l'heure actuelle, a remplir ses obligations envers la 
cause commune, c'est-a-dire, a maintenir l'ideal democratique, 
par la force des armes, a n'importe quel prix, tant en hommes 
qu'en argent. Dans le courant de la semaine, quarante-quatre 
de nos eleves vont s'embarquer pour aller servir sur le front fran- 
cos dans le corps des ambulanciers americains. 

Presque sans exception tous nos jeunes gens subissent un 
entrainement assidu pour faire face aux besoins de la cause a 
laquelle les £tats-Unis ont donne toute leur adhesion. 

Nous adressons F expression de notre admiration a tous les 
membres des universites franchises, a la grande Republique soeur, 
a tous ces hommes qui Font si vaillamment et si efficacement 

def endue." 

Ernest Martin Hopkins 

President 

De T£tat du Vermont, lequel porte fierement un nom d'origine francaise, 
me sont parvenus deux messages de ses deux principaux etablissements 
d'education. Le President de l'Universite de l'£tat qui preside aussi la 
" Federation des universites des £tats-Unis ", accompagne sa lettre d'une 
photographie de la statue de La Fayette, erigee devant le principal corps 
de batiment de TUniversite: 

14 Je vous prie de porter aux principaux educateurs de la 
Republique soeur le salut des etablissements d'education de 



31 



TAssociation Nationale de la Federation des universites. Je 
serai egalement tres heureux que vous leur apportiez Texpression 
des sentiments affectueux et de bonne camaraderie du President, 
du corps enseignant des etudiants, ainsi que de tous les services de 
TUniversite du Vermont et de l'ecole d'agriculture de l'£tat. 

' La dette des £tats-Unis envers la France est une de celles 
dont nous ne pourrons jamais nous acquitter entierement. Nous 
sommes heureux d'etre les Allies de ce vaillant peuple dans la 
lutte pour Tetablissement de la democratic universelle. L' Uni- 
versite du Vermont a tou jours entretenu des sentiments de par- 
ticuliere affection a l'egard de la France, car ce fut un heros 
francais que nous considerons comme un des notres, le marquis 
de La Fayette, qui posa la premiere pierre du principal corps de 
batiment de l'universite, lequel fut malheureusement detruit par 
un incendie a la suite de la guerre de 1812. La plus belle statue 
du general La Fayette que nous ayons aux £tats-Unis, ceuvre 
de J. Q. A. Ward, est le principal ornement de notre Universite. 
Je joins a ma lettre une photographic de cette statue dediee a 
M. le ministre de 1' Instruction publique. 

Guy Potter Benton 

President de V Association Nationale 

des Universites d'Etat, 

President de U Universite du Vermont, 

Directeur de I'Ecole d* Agriculture de VEtat. 

Le President du College de Middlebury servait l'ete dernier comme 
aumonier dans l'un de nos regiments sur la frontiere mexicaine. J'aime a 
penser qu'il pourra venir en France avec le contingent americain. Voici 
son message: 

* Le corps enseignant et les etudiants du college de Middlebury, 
dans l*£tat du Vermont, desirent envoyer leur salut le plus 
cordial et le plus sympathique aux professeurs et aux eleves des 
universites de la Republique Francaise. L'£tat du Vermont a 
re^u son nom du grand explorateur francais et pionnier du chris- 
tianisme, Samuel Champlain, qui fut le premier homme blanc a 
contempler nos belles collines verdoyantes. Notre capitale porte 



32 

un nom egalement honore en France, Montpellier. Depuis le 
premier et effrayant choc de cette guerre terrible, nos cceurs n'ont 
cesse de battre avec une chaude sympathie pour la France. 
Maintenant, nous nous rejouissons d'etre appeles a partager les 
sacrifices des membres des universites. Nous attendons avec 
impatience le jour ou nous serons trouves dignes de combattre a 
cote d'eux, et nous participerons avec joie a leurs souff ranees, 
esperant ainsi partager la gloire dont les membres des universites 
franchises se sont couverts dans leur lutte heroi'que pour assurer 
Tetablissement de la democratic dans le monde." 

John M. Thomas 

President 

L'£tat du Massachusetts a magnifiquement manifeste son amour pour la 
France et il n'y a pas un etablissement d'education en Amerique qui ait 
fait plus que 1'Universite Harvard. Animee par l'ardente sympathie que 
son President eprouve pour votre pays, elle envoie ses professeurs dans vos 
universites et ses eleves et anciens eleves dans votre armee. Voici son 
message : 

* Veuillez porter aux universites de France, nos sceurs, les 

salutations les plus chaleureuses de TUniversite Harvard. Nous 

commencons seulement a faire ce qu'elles font depuis deja trois 

ans: nous envoyons nos jeunes gens prendre part a la grande lutte 

pour la cause de la civilisation et de rhumanite." 

A. Lawrence Lowell 

President 

Les autres institutions d'education du Massachusetts se sont montrees 
aussi empressees a manifester leur sympathie. Je ne puis citer que des 
extraits des nombreuses adresses recues: 

De TUniversite Clark: 

' Non seulement l'Histoire americaine, mais aussi la Science 
americaine ont contracte une dette immense vis-a-vis de la 
France." 

G. Stanley Hall 

President 



33 

Du College d' Amherst: 

' Nous, qui dans les colleges americains, cherchons a demon- 
trer d'une facon tangible et pratique a une democratic encore 
naissante l'art de se conduire par les idees, nous rendons hom- 
mage a la nation qui, plus que toute autre nation moderne, a su 
garder intacte sa foi dans la suprematie de l'intelligence comme 
guide de la vie." 

Alexander Meiklejohn 

President 

Le corps enseignant, le conseil d'administration et les eleves de 
YUniversite de Boston envoient un message officiel exprimant leur espoir de 
voir se developper des relations plus etroites entre les deux peuples, et 
jrappellent le mouvement dirigedans ce sens par une centaine d'universitaires 
sous la direction du Dr Wigmore, mouvement en faveur duquel le ministre 
de 1' Instruction publique, M. Steeg, a deja manifeste son approbation. 
(Dr Wigmore, doyen de la Nortwestern Faculte de Droit et doyen de 
YUniversite de Boston est aussi le President du comite des Cent pour 
1'etablissement de bourses d'eleves americains dans les universites 
irancaises.) 

Le College Tufts s'exprime en ces termes : 

* Un grand nombre des notres, ainsi que la plupart d'entre 
vous, ont offert leurs services a leur pays et se tiennent prets a 
faire tout ce que leur gouvernement voudra leur demander. 
Maintenant que les deux Republiques de France et des Etats- 
Unis sont unies dans la cause commune pour la liberte, la fra- 
ternite et 1'etablissement d'une paix durable entre toutes les 
nations, nous sommes inspires non seulement par votre merveilleux 
exemple, mais aussi par la reconnaissance pour les services que 
nous a rendus autrefois votre pays, en aidant nos ancetres a con- 
querir la liberte dont nous jouissons depuis si longtemps. 

Toute votre jeunesse des Arts, des Lettres et des Sciences a 
apporte a la France le concours de son effort. Nulle nation ne 
pouvait offrir de plus riches qualites de courage, de force d'ame 
et de puissance que la votre. C'est de grand cceur que nous 
vous offrons aujourd'hui le concours de nos bras. Nous voulons 



34 

prendre part a vos luttes et a vos sacrifices, et partager avec vous 
la gloire du triomphe." 

Le recteur du College Williams,. M. H. A. Garfield, fils de 1'un des 
anciens Presidents des £tats-Unis, exprime " les sentiments de tous " en 
adressant son cordial salut et en affirmant sa foi absolue dans la victoire. 
II parle des deux freres Cru, etudiants de Williams, qui sont maintenant 
sur le front. D'ailleurs, son propre fils vient de s'engager dans le service 
des ambulances au front. 

Le directeur de l'lnstitut Polytechnique de Worcester, M. Ira Hollis, 
un grand savant, apres avoir declare que: 

* Les Francois ont eu a supporter la plus lourde charge de la 
lutte pour le triomphe de la civilisation et de la liberte du genre 
humain ", adresse ses souhaits les plus chaleureux aux ecoles 
franchises, et en particulier aux etablissements " qui enseignent a 
la jeunesse les sciences appliquees." 

Des messages ont ete egalement envoyes par les colleges de jeunes filles 
du Massachusetts. Voici celui du fameux College Wellesley: 

"Au cours de cette terrible lutte, un profond sentiment de 
camaraderie et d'amitie pour les Allies et en particulier pour la 
France, s'est developpe dans nos cceurs. J'ai ete surprise et 
heureuse de constater avec quelle spontaneite nos etudiantes ont 
repondu a toutes les demandes de secours, et surtout a celles qui 
venaient de France." 

Ellen J. Pendleton 

Directrice 

Les professeurs du non moins connu College Smith se sont prononces 
pour l'envoi d'un message de chaleuses felicitations, et le principal du 
college ajoute: 

1 Permettez-moi de vous assurer qu'il s'agit la dun geste dont 
la valeur depasse celle d'une simple formalite. Dans ce college, 
nous sommes tous parfaitement d'accord avec la France, nous 
adherons a la cause qu'elle soutient et nous apprecions le service 
que vous nous rendez en transmettant aux universites franchises 
le message des eleves, du corps enseignant et du President de ce 



35 

college, message qui expnmera avec notre amii;ie, notre enthousi- 
asme pour les principes que la France represente et notre confiance 
dans son triomphe." 

M. L. Burton 

President 

Le College Simmons ecnt: 

* Nous avons ete profondement emus de la valeur deploy ee 
et des souffrances endurees par les soldats de France, dont beau- 
coup sont des savants et des professeurs. L'entrain et la magna- 
nimite avec lesquels tous les Francais, quelle que soil leur situa- 
tion dans la vie, ont supporte le fardeau de la guerre, sont pour 
nous un sujet de constante inspiration. Beaucoup d'entre nous 
ont voyage en France, quelques-uns ont suivi des cours dans les 
universites franchises, et nous avons tous beneficie, de cent facons 
differentes, de l'erudition francaise. Aucun Americain ne saurait 
oublier les souvenirs qui, au cours de toute notre Histoire, unissent 
notre pays au leur. Nous profitons du moment ou notre pays 
entre en guerre aux cotes de la France et de ses Allies, pour la 
cause de la liberte et de la democratic, pour transmettre a nos 
camarades francais, l'expression la plus sincere de notre bonne 
amitie, de notre reconnaissance et de notre admiration.'* 

Henry Lefavour 

President 

Les professeurs et les eleves du college du Mount Holyoke ont envoye 
ce message, superbement grave: 

' Nous, etudiants et professeurs du college du Mount 
Holyoke, tendons fraternellement les mains vers les universites, 
les lycees et les ecoles de France, a cette heure critique que la 
Republique Francaise et celle des £tats-Unis traversent en ce 
moment. 

Dans l'espoir que les relations amicales etablies jadis entre les 
deux pays, ainsi que les relations d'amitie qui existent aujourd'hui, 
pourront servir a developper a un degre inconnu jusqu'ici l'espnt 
democratique et les aspirations vers l'ideal, et, constatant encore 



36 

une fois, a la suite de la recente revolution russe, l'importance des 
ecoles dans Fomentation de la vie publique vers un ideal demo- 
cratique, nous nous engageons a travailler d'accord avec les 
etablissements d'education en France a Favenement du regne de 
fraternite qui devra recevoir la consecration du monde." 

L'Universite Brown: 

L'£tat de Rhode Island est represents par un eloquent message du 
directeur de Brown, que je reproduis en partie: 

* Notre universite, situee a Providence, £tat de Rhode Island, 
a des raisons toutes particulieres d'etre profondement reconnais- 
sante a Fhero'isme et a la culture de la France. C'est a trente 
milles d'ici, que six mille soldats frangais ont debarque sous la 
conduite de Rochambeau, pour porter secours a notre pays pend- 
ant notre guerre d'Independance; dans le voisinage de notre 
universite, une avenue, F avenue Rochambeau, nous rappelle 
encore F emplacement ou ces troupes ont campe; la plus ancienne 
partie des batiments de l'Universite a ete occupee, pendant six 
ans, par les troupes franchises et americaines. 

II y a presque deux ans, Tun de nos professeurs, le lieutenant 
frangais Henri F. Micoleau, repondant a l'appel de son pays 
natal, a trouve, dans quelque coin ignore de la terre de France, 
une mort glorieuse. 

Maintenant que nous sommes devenus vos compagnons d'armes 

nous nous rendons compte que vos problemes sont aussi devenus 

les notres. Nous devons aussi veiller a ce que le flambeau de 

Feducation ne s'eteigne pas dans la tourmente de cette guerre, et ll 

nous faut aussi entrainer ceux qui doivent prendre la place de vos 

soldats tombes." 

W. H. P. Faunce 

President 

Universite Yale: 

Apres m'etre entendu avec les corps enseignants des differentes ecoles qui 
composent cette florissante Universite, j'ai recu de son president le message 
suivant, qui peut, pour le moment, etre considere comme l'expression des 



37 

sentiments de l'£tat du Connecticut, les adresses des autres etablissements 
d'instruction de cet £tat ne m'etant pas encore parvenues : 

"Au nom des membres du corps enseignant, des etudiants et 
des eleves diplomes de l'universite, je vous prie de transmettre 
l'expression de notre attachement aux nombreuses universites et 
aux colleges de France que vous pourrez visiter. Nous sommes 
tres heureux de profiler de cette occasion pour leur exprimer notre 
profonde sympathie pour les souffrances qu'ils ont endurees et de 
les feliciter aussi pour ce qu'ils ont accompli." 

Arthur Twining Hadley 

President 
LET AT DE NEW-YORK 

Plus de trente etablissements superieurs d'education de l'£tat de New- 
York, y compris toutes les universites et tous les colleges autant publics que 
p rives, ont envoy e des messages pleins d'enthousiasme a la France, *' porte- 
flambeau de la lumiere intellectuelle, de la beaute, de la civilisation ", 
ainsi que l'appelle le doyen du college de jeunes filles Barnard. Je ne 
puis en citer que deux: voici d'abord le message specialement adresse par 
le College de la ville de New- York au President Poincare, a l'occasion du 
" France Day ", lequel a ete observe d'un bout a l'autre de l'£tat, comme 
je l'ai dit plus haut. J'ai eu i'honneur d'assister a cette imposante reunion 
de trois mille professeurs, anciens eleves et etudiants, et le plaisir de con- 
stater l'unanimite, dans cette manifestation, de sympathie pour la France. 

4 Le. College de la Ville de New-York, reuni en assemblee 
generale a l'occasion du " France Day ", envoie son salut cordial 
a la France, et s'engage a cooperer sans restrictions a la lutte 
universelle pour le triomphe de la democratic, de 1'humanite et du 
droit." 

Voici le message de l'Universite de l'Union: 

' Notre amitie pour vous date deja de longtemps. II y a 
plus d'un siecle, un de vos compatriotes, Joseph-Jacques Ramee, 
dessina les plans de notre college. L'original de ces plans est 
maintenant expose dans le bureau du president. 

" Le College de l'Union a ete le premier college en Amerique 
a permettre, dans le programme de ses cours, de remplacer des 



38 

langues anciennes par la langue francaise; le vieux sceau du 
college porte, avec la tete de Minerve, Inscription en francais: 
4 Sous les lois de Minerve nous devenons tous freres.* 

' Cette devise merite d'etre prise comme texte de notre mes- 
sage. Freres sous les lois de Minerve, nous sommes unis par des 
liens encore plus etroits sous les lois de la liberte et de la fra- 
ternite. Comme freres, nous vous saluons, comme freres, nous 
accueillons avec joie Foccasion qui nous est offerte de lutter a 
vos cotes, de nous sacrifier aussi a cette noble cause pour laquelle 
vos meilleurs et vos plus braves fils sont deja tombes. Nous 
voulons nous joindre a vous pour glorifier ceux qui ont paye de 
leur vie leur dette a la patrie, et nous vous garantissons notre aide 
jusqu'au bout. Nous enverrons nos fils combattre a cote des 
votres, dans cette lutte supreme pour la liberte de la France, 
de FAmerique et du monde entier. Et le jour de la victoire 
finale, qui surement viendra, nous verrons flotter glorieusement 
ensemble les trois couleurs de la France et la banniere etoilee de 
FAmerique." 

Charles Alexander Richmond 

President 

Universite de Princeton: 

Le message de FUniversite de Princeton, dans l'£tat de New-Jersey, 
contient le programme de ce que compte faire cette universite sous la 
direction de son president, le Docteur Hibben, non seulement pour assurer 
un avenir plus liberal a l'enseignement superieur, mais encore pour 
preparer ses eleves a servir leur pays d'une maniere plus efncace. 

Le President Hibben est venu accompagner au bateau sur lequel je me 
suis embarque a New- York, une vingtaine de ses eleves qui venaient servir 
de ce cote de l'ocean, et il adresse son cordial salut au monde de Fenseigne- 
ment en France: 

' Nous sommes profondement emus par la patience, le courage 
et 1'invincible esperance de votre grande nation et nous sommes 
tres fiers que vous nous consideriez comme des Allies. C*est 
notre grande esperance et notre fervente priere que les jeunes 
gens et les jeunes filles de notre nouvelle generation puissent 
s'inspirer des grandes actions du present pour un haut ideal de 



39 

pensee et cTaction de fagon a ce qu'ils puissent faire noblement 
face aux epreuves que la vie leur reserve, avec force et courage.*' 

L'Institut Stevens et le College Rutgers, de se meme £tat, vous envoient 
leurs messages de felicitations. 

ETAT DE PENNSYLVANIE 

D'un bout a l'autre de l'£tat de Pensylvanie, aussi bien du cote de 
l'Est, ou le College La Fayette perpetue le souvenir du grand ami de 
Washington, que du cote oppose ou la ville de Pittsburg conserve intact 
1'emplacement ou s'elevait le fort Duquesne, les universites et les colleges 
les plus marquants ont, sans exception, envoye des messages de sympathie 
et d'admiration: le College La Fayette, l'Universite de Pensylvanie, les 
Colleges Wilson, Dickinson, Bryn-Mawr, l'Universite de Lehigh, l'lnstitut 
Carnegie, l'Universite de Pittburg ainsi que le College d' Allegheny ou 
Ton rencontrerait, si Ton remontait dans l'histoire, la figure de Celeron 
allant du lac Erie a l'Ohio, et laissant au cours de sa longue route des 
marques de son passage. Ce m'est un grand regret de n'avoir de place ici 
que pour deux ou trois de ces messages. - 

College La Fayette: 

' Les membres du corps enseignant et les etudiants du College 
La Fayette s'empressent de pronter de 1'occasion qui leur est 
offerte par la visite de M. Finley aux universites et aux ecoles de 
France pour envoyer un salut fraternel aux etudiants et aux pro- 
fesseurs de la grande nation qui apporta a FAmerique le precieux 
secours de Fimmortel La Fayette et qui donna a notre College, 
fonde en Fhonneur de ce dernier, Finspiration imperissable et 
Fautorite de ce grand nom. 

'* Nous avons suivi avec une admiration enthousiaste votre 
heroique defense de la belle terre de France et de son glorieux 
passe. Nous avons ete emerveilles a la vue de la manifestation 
de cet esprit sublime avec lequel vous vous etes mis au service de 
la nation, esprit bien digne de la tache qui vous etait imposee, et 
qui, chaque jour, s'est manifeste de plus en plus confiant, de plus 
en plus fecond en ressources. 

* Nous nous estimons heureux de pouvoir entrer dans la lutte 
pour la cause de la liberte, comme allies d'un peuple si vaillant 
et doue d'un esprit si noble. Cette necessite de defendre nos 



40 

droits contre un ennemi commun a resserre encore les liens qui 

nous unissaient, et lorsque notre victoire aura retabli la paix, nous 

esperons que les Americains chercheront de plus en plus a 

s'instruire dans les universites franchises, et que nous, membres 

de l'enseignement et universitaires, resterons unis dans la grande 

et eternelle lutte pour le triomphe de la liberte liberatrice." 

John H. Mac Cracken 

President 

Le College Haverford a manifeste ainsi ses sentiments: 

4 Le President et les membres du corps enseignant du College 

Haverford, etablissement fonde par les propres disciples de 

William Penn, pres de la ville de 1' 'Amour fraternel \ envoient 

aux universites et aux colleges de France leur plus cordial salut 

ainsi que l'expression de leur sympathie pour les souffrances et 

les privations qu'ils ont si noblement supportees pour ce commun 

amour de la liberte et de la tolerance que nous partageons, salut 

dadmiration pour le patriotisme heroique qu'ils ont partage avec 

tous les autres enfants de la France, salut de gratitude pour cette 

devotion dont le monde de l'enseignement en France a toujours 

fait preuve pour la cause de la raison et de la verite." 

J'ai recu de I'Universite de Pennsylvanie ce message: 
' Nos etudiants, qui sont plus de neuf mille, nous viennent de 
tous les Etats de notre pays. Tous sympathisent profondement 
avec vous, et nous vous assurons que nous serons heureux de 
cooperer avec vous par tous les moyens possibles. Nous sou- 
haitons que la paix ne se fasse pas longtemps attendre et que la 
France puisse de nouveau exercer son entiere activite dans toutes 

les branches de reducation." 

Edgar F. Smith 

Provost 

Voici ce qu'a ecrit l'lnstitut Carnegie de Technologie: 

* II est de circonstance que l'lnstitut de Technologie (fonde 

par un homme qui, dans sa jeunesse, servit son pays en faisant la 

guerre, et plus tard, fit beaucoup pour la cause de la paix). 



41 

envoie son salut a la France, qui fait de tels sacrifices pour la 
cause de l'humanite. Pour nous autres, a Pittsburgh, la France 
a une signification d'autant plus grande que nous vivons sur 
Templacement du premier etablissement francais important de 
Pensylvanie: le Fort Duquesne. Mais la dette de notre Institut 
envers la France est particuliere et intime: l'£cole des Beaux- 
Arts de l'lnstitut Carnegie de Technologie a ete organisee par 
un homme qui etudia a l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, et c'est 
a l'inspiration qu'il recut de vos ecoles nationales qu'est due une 
bonne part du succes obtenu. Nous avons observe avec une 
admiration sans cesse croissante qu'au milieu de votre lutte 
gigantesque vous n'avez pas un instant neglige la cause de l'edu- 
cation. Prives, depuis ces derniers temps, de l'inestimable privi- 
lege accorde a notre jeunesse de pouvoir contmuer ses etudes 
dans vos etablissements scolaires, nous nous rendons mieux 
compte, de nos besoins et de tout ce dont nous vous sommes 
redevables, et nous attendons patiemment le jour, et nous sommes 
convaincus qu'il est proche, ou nous pourrons de nouveau jouir de 
la genereuse hospitalite que la nation francaise a toujours offerte 
a nos etudiants. C'est avec un vif sentiment de satisfaction que 
nous nous sentons aujourd'hui unis a vous dans cette lutte. 

* Pendant que nous redigeons ce message, sept cents de nos 
etudiants, devancant l'appel sous les drapeaux apprennent leur 
metier de soldats. Nos etudiants aussi se sont deja prepares a 
accomplir la tache qui leur est reservee. 

* De meme que nous suivons votre ideal en matiere d'instruc- 
tion et de culture, nous nous efforcons aussi de suivre votre ideal 
en matiere de patriotisme et de devouement au pays. Nous 
saisissons avec empressement Toccasion qui nous est offerte de 
vous adresser ce message." 

REGION DU SUD 

Si Ton descend vers le sud, suivant le chemin parcouru par La Fayette 
pour se rendre a Philadelphie, apres son debarquement dans la Caroline 
du Sud, on n'entend le long de cette longue route que des paroles d'affection 
et d'admiration pour la France. 



42 

A Baltimore, c'est l'Universite du Maryland et la fameuse Universite 
Johns Hopkins dont le President, un savant double d'un grand adminis- 
trateur, le Dr J. Goodnow, ecrit ce qui suit: 

' Tous les membres des universites travaillent en commun pour 
l'avancement des sciences et pour la diffusion des connaissances. 
Nous avons pourtant le sentiment dans ce pays-ci, en ce moment, 
que nous autres, universitaires americains, nous sommes attaches 
aux universites de France par des liens plus etroits que les liens 
ordinaires. Ayant les memes sentiments que vous touchant 
l'ideal democratique, nous ne pourrions faire autrement que 
de reconnaitre la dette de gratitude que nous avons contracted 
envers la France pour la resistance superbe qu'elle a su opposer 
aux ennemis du gouvernement du peuple par luimeme. Nous 
esperons, maintenant que nous sommes engages dans ce conflit 
coude a coude avec la France, pouvoir 1' aider a remplir la lourde 
tache dont elle a jusqu'ici supporte si vaillamment tout le poids." 

A Washington, ou j'ai eu 1'honneur, quelques jours avant mon depart, 
de rne rencontrer avec M. Viviani, le Marechal Joffre et les autres mem- 
bres de cette remarquable mission, c'etait de tous cotes un debordement 
d'enihousiasme pour la France. 

De l'£tat de Virginie, des messages ont ete envoyes notamment par le 
College de William et Mary, dont le President (qui est un fills de John 
Tyler) me prie de declarer aux universites de France que: 

' 1' esprit democratique qui s'est manifeste avec tant d'eclat 
en la personne d'un ancien eleve du college, Thomas Jefferson, 
nous fait sympathiser profondernent avec la France dans la 
grande lutte ou elle est maintenant engagee contre 1' autocratic" 

Des messages me sont egalement parvenus de l'Universite de Washington 
et de Lee qui fut fondee par Georges Washington et qui au nombre de ses 
tresors les plus precieux, possede un portrait de La Fayette, par Peale. 
Ce n'est pas une grande institution, mais elle est animee d'un excellent 
esprit et: 

1 les etudiants font tous les jours l'exercice pour se preparer a 
remplir seneusement leur devoir comme freres d'armes des etu- 
diants de France." 



43 

Son president assure les universites de France que 

' dans tous les centres d'education en Amerique, on vibre 
d'enthousiasme en pensant a I'heroi'sme des enfants de la France." 

Le President de l'Universite de Virginie, M. Edwin A. Alderman, 
vous envoie le message suivant: 

' L'Universite de Virginie, fondee par Thomas Jefferson, 
auteur de la Declaration de i'lndependance americaine, envoie 
1' expression de sa sympathie et de sa conSance aux universites de 
France ainsi qu'a toute la jeunesse des ecoles et colleges. Notre 
universite se souvient avec fierte que La Fayette et Jefferson se 
promenerent jadis dans ses jardins, revant ensemble au jour ou 
la democratic et la fraternite regneraient sur la terre. En com- 
battant avec tant de vaillance pour la realisation de ce reve, la 
France a ajoute un nouveau fleuron a sa couronne de gloire; elle 
a raffermi 1'estime et l'amour des peuples en apprenant aux nations 
libres comment il faut souffrir pour la liberte. Voila pourquoi le 
drapeau tricolore francais flotte aujourd'hui sur nos tours et 
pourquoi au seul nom de la France, nos cceurs s'enflamment 
d'une noble ardeur. 

Un des fils de notre universite, James Rogers MacConnell, 
dans un combat aerien ou il faisait seul face a trois ennemis, vient 
de trouver en France une mort heroique. Ses compagnons 
d'etudes sont fiers de lui et de son sacrifice. II restera pour nous 
comme un lien nouveau et sacre entre le pays de La Fayette et 
la patrie de Jefferson." 

De plus loin encore dans le sud, vous sont envoyes d'autres messages 
pleins d'enthousiasme; il nous en est venu de l'Universite de la Caroline du 
Nord (dont le president exprime sa reconnaissance aux universites de 
France pour avoir pleinement confirme, dans un style d'une puissance et 
d'une beaute imperissables, les principes sur lesquels notre croyance est 
fondee), ainsi que du College de la Trinite dans le meme £tat; il en est 
venu de l'Universite de la Caroline du Sud et du College Rollins dans 
l'£tat de la Floride; de l'Universite de la Virginie occidentale, de 
l'Universite Vanderbilt, de l'£tat de Tennessee, de l'Universite du Missis- 
sippi, de l'Universite de Tulane dans la Louisiane, et de celle de la ville de 



44 

la Nouvelle-Orleans ou se sont perpetuees les moeurs et les traditions 
francaises, de 1'Universite de l'£tat du Texas, sur les confins de la fron- 
tiere du Mexique, dont le President ecrit: 

' Nous avons l'espoir que les universites de France, d'Angle- 
terre et d'Amerique s'uniront dans un commun effort pour edifier 
un genre de civilisation qui, a l'avenir, rendra impossible le retour 
d'une situation semblable a celle qui pese a 1'heure actuelle sur le 
rnonde." 

Robert E. Vinson 

President 

Ce qui doit surtout toucher le coeur des Francais, c'est de savoir que sur 
toute l'etendue de 1'immense bassin du Mississippi — bassin dont les grands 
cours d'eau ont ete suivis par les explorateurs francais et dont les grandes 
villes se sont elevees sur les emplacements des forts et des portages 
edifies par eux — I'amour de la France surgit pour ainsi dire du sol. 

De nombreux messages ont ete envoyes par les universites et les colleges 
de F£tat de l'Ohio (cet £tat tient son nom du fleuve que vos explorateurs 
francais avaient appeles la " Belle Riviere ". Je ne puis citer que quelques 
phrases de ces messages: 

Universite de l'£tat de l'Ohio: 

' Les membres de 1'Universite s'unissent pour exprimer leur 
admiration pour le courage et Ffieroisme deployes par le peuple 
francais, dans la lutte magnifique qu 'il livre pour la defense de la 
liberte." 

Wm. O. Thompson 

President 
College Oberlin: 

4 Notre admiration pour la grandeur d'ame que la France a 

manifestee dans cette crise mondiale augmente tous les jours et 

nous sentons avec joie que l'influence de la France en Amerique 

sera plus forte que jamais cipres cette guerre." 

Henri Churchill King 

President 
College Kenyon: 

* Un tel patriotisme ne s'est pas acquis en un jour; c'est grace 
aux lecons et sous l'impulsion de leurs maitres, que les fils de la 
Republique sont devenus des heros animes du plus vif patriotisme. 



45 

Honneur et gloire a ceux qui ont enseigne cet esprit sublime de 

devouement absolu a l'ideal national, et a ceux qui ont su 

Facquerir. L'Amerique est fiere de prendre place aux cotes de la 

grande Republique son alliee. Citoyens d'une nation devouee a 

l'ideal de la liberte et de la democratic, notre plus ambitieux 

espoir est que notre patriotisme eclate aussi clair et aussi fort que 

celui de nos freres bien-aimes de France." 

William F. Peirce 

President 

College Hiram: 

(Le College de Garfield, Ie President Martyr.) 
' Dites aux universites de France que notre College est pro- 
fondement reconnaissant a leurs membres du devouement qu'ils 
ont manifeste dans cette lutte pour la cause de la liberte et du 
droit, cause que nous sommes appeles aujourd'hui a defendre avec 
eux. Pour nous encourager a entrer en lutte a leurs cotes, aux 
preuves qu'ils nous ont donnees de ce devouement, ils ont ajoute 
aussi l'exemple du sacrifice sans precedent qu'ils ont consenti a 
cette noble cause. Leur ideal le plus eleve est aussi le notre, et 
notre plus ardent desir est que notre communaute d'action dans 
cette guerre soit le commencement d'une permanente et intime 
collaboration dans les luttes futures que nous aurons encore a 
soutenir pour le triomphe de l'intelligence." 

Miner Lee Bates 

President 

Dans l'£tat du Michigan, dont St. Lusson prit possession au nom de 
la France, et dans lequel on a toujours tenu en honneur la memoire de> 
explorateurs francais, le President de la grande Universite de l'£tat ecrit 
ce qui suit a M. le Ministre de l'lnstruction publique: 

Universite du Michigan: 

"Au nom des membres du conseil d'administration, des prc- 
fesseurs et des etudiants de l'Universite du Michigan, je desire 
que vous portiez aux membres des conseils d'administration, aux 
professeurs et aux etudiants des universites francaises, le salut 
cordial et les souhaits sinceres de l'Universite du Michigan. Vous 
^voudrez bien aussi les assurer de notre profonde sympathie dans 



46 

la lutte actuelle. Nous sommes de tout coeur avec eux et avec 
tout le peuple frangais, dans leur effort pour bannir a jamais du 
monde la domiriation autocratique. Esperons que nous appro- 
chons du but; mais, que ce but soit proche ou encore eloigne, 
TUniversite du Michigan, toutes les universites, tout le peuple 
americain sont prets a offrir sans marchander tout Tappui qu'il 
est en leur pouvoir de donner. Permettez-moi de vous assurer 
que nous n'avons pas oublie la genereuse attitude de la France 
et de son peuple en vers nous, a nos heures d'epreuves." 

H. B. Hutchins 

President 

Les universites et colleges de l'lndiana: 

Le message de TUniversite de T£tat a ete envoy e mais n'est pas encore 
parvenu en France. J'ai egalement recu les messages de sept autres uni- 
versites et colleges de l'lndiana avant mon depart de New-York. L'un, 
de TUniversite Purdue, situee dans une ville appelee Lafayette, nous 
apporte en ces termes le salut de son President: 

' Nous exprimons notre admiration pour le courage et la 
grandeur d'ame du peuple francais. Jamais le flambeau de la 
sciense ne s'eteindra tant qu'il restera confie a de si fideles mains. 

' Nous saluons en vous les defenseurs de la civilisation et nous 

vous assurerons de toute Taide que nous pourrons vous donner." 

W. E. Stone 

President 

Dans un message de Tuniversite Catholique de Notre-Dame, son 
President est particulierement fier de rappeler que cette universite fut 
fondee, il y a 75 ans, par un missionnaire francais, et que ses premiers 
professeurs furent tous francais. 

Le College Wabash exprime Tespoir qu'un certain nombre de ses eleves 
iront, sous peu, rejoindre les troupes franchises sur le front occidental. 

Mais le message le plus frappant est peut-etre le suivant, qu'un college 
quaker, (Societe des Amis) envoie au Ministre de TInstruction publique: 

College Earlham: 

"A l'unanimite, les membres du corps enseignant et les eleves 
de ce college, reunis a Toccasion de leurs prieres quotidiennes, 



47 

demandent a leur President de vous charger de transmettre aux 

professeurs et aux etudiants de France leur plus cordial salut et 

Texpression de leur profonde sympathie dans ces terribles jours 

d'epreuves. Leur courage nous a fait tressaillir demotion et leur 

endurance a eleve nos coeurs. Nous prions pour que les nobles 

qualites montrees par les hommes et les femmes de France, 

qualites auxquelles nous, Americains, sommes tellement redev- 

ables, persistent dans leurs ames et les conduisent, apres cette 

guerre, a un monde meilleur et plus heureux." 

Robert Lincoln Kelly 

President 

Les universites et colleges de l'lllinois: 

De cet £tat ou La Salle esperait fonder la capitale de l'empire qu'il 
destinait a la France, l'£tat ou le Pere Marquette fonda une tribu d'Indiens 
qui, s'appelant " Les Hommes ", donnerent leur nom a l'£tat, ou se trouve 
la tombe d' Abraham Lincoln, de cet £tat ou la premiere maison de sa 
grande capitale Chicago fut la hutte du Pere Marquette, vous sont envoyes 
tant de messages qu'il est impossible de les citer tous. 

Un president exprime la grande satisfaction qui nous est donnee de 
M pouvoir nous aligner aux cotes de la France ". 

La pensee de l'Universite du Nord-Quest exprimee par M. le doyen 
Wigmore dans son magnifique plaidoyer en faveur d'une cooperation intel- 
lectuelle, est completee par un message du Dr Holgate, President de 
l'Universite, et dont le nls est venu servir sur le front. 

Mais je ne puis ici citer que la lettre du President de l'Universite de 
Chicago qui exprime la pensee unanime des etablissements d'education de 
l'lllinois: 

' Notre corps enseignant et nos eleves sont entierement acquis 
a la grande cause pour laquelle la France fait de si grands efforts 
et sacrifice le meilleur de son sang, et sympathisant profondement 
avec les universites sceurs dans la serieuse epreuve a laquelle elles 
sont soumises, nous leur souhaitons plein succes dans Tavenir, et 
nous sommes convaincus qu'elles ajoutent a leur histoire la plus 
belle et plus glorieuses de ses pages.*' 

Harry Pratt Judson 

President 



48 

Les sentiments de l'£tat du Wisconsin ont ete si generalement incompris 
et si mal interpreted, qu'aucun message parmi ceux qui composent cette col- 
lection, n'est plus important et plus significant que celui du president de la 
grande Universite de cet £tat, dont le President est un de nos plus grands 
savants et publicistes. 

Universite du Wisconsin: 

' Des le debut de la guerre, la sympathie des membres du 
corps enseignant de l'Universite du Wisconsin est alle, aux Allies 
et specialement, a la France et a l'Angleterre, les deux grands 
pays representant la democratic en Europe; a ce groupe de 
democraties s'est heureusement jointe une autre grande puissance, 
la Russie. 

Si personne en Amerique ne peut comprendre toute l'etendue 
du sacrifice que la France a fait et fait encore pour la cause de 
la civilisation, nous ne sommes pas sans reconnaitre l'irresistible 
impulsion qui l'a conduite a donner tout le meilleur de son sang 
et a contribuer de toutes ses ressources materielles a une fin 
heureuse du conflit. 

Durant les deux premieres annees de la guerre, les esprits 
dirigeants en Amerique ont senti combien les allies pouvaient 
difficilement comprendre la position dans laquelle nous nous 
trouvions, et, cependant, il nous etait impossible d'obtenir Tunite 
du sentiment public necessaire pour soutenir Taction du President 
et du Congres. La barbarie de la guerre sous-marine a rallie 
unanimement notre peuple aux principes pour lesquels combattent 
les Allies, et, maintenant, les £tats-Unis, comme toute la France 
la reconnu, ont pris au nom de la civilisation une position tres 
nette dans ce conflit. 

Nous nous trouvons tres soulages, en Amerique, d'etre sortis 
de la position anormale qu'etait la notre jusqu'ici; c'est avec joie 
que nous nous sentons completement unis aux Allies, dans une 
determination absolue de mettre fin a la domination autocratique 
qui a amene la presente catastrophe. 

* L' Amerique se sent toujours profondement reconnaissante de 
l'immense service que la France rendit au peuple Americain 



49 

dans notre guerre d'Independance. Et nous accueillons avec 
allegresse l'occasion qui se presente, alors qu'elle traverse une 
grave crise nationale, de payer a la France notre ancienne dette. 
Je desire faire part aux recteurs des universites de France de 
ma profonde appreciation des contributions que ces universites ont 
apportees, et continuent d'apporter, a l'avancement de la science et 
de la civilisation; je desire aussi leur exprimer ma profonde sym- 
pathy pour les malheurs que certaines universites ont eprouves. 
Je compte heureusement des amis et des collegues parmi les uni- 
versities francais; certains d'entre eux appartenaient a cette 
m ortunee universite de Lille, aujourd'hui encore dans les lignes 
allemandes, mais qui, nous l'esperons, sera bientot rendue a la 
France. 

"Avec ma profonde sympathie pour les epreuves presents 
mais confiant dans un avenir radieux pour les universites 
trancaises, pour la France et pour la democratic je suis sincere- 
ment votre." 

Charles R. Van Hise 

President 

Une lettre du Dr. Eaton, President du College Beloit, du meme Etat 
confarme les sentiments exprimes dans ce magnifique message. 

De chaleureux messages me sont egalement parvenus de l'Universite 
a Etat de I Iowa, ainsi que des principaux colleges de cet Etat, de I'Uni- 
versite d Etat et des principaux etablissements d'enseignement du Missouri, 
oe 1 Universite d'Etat du Kansas, de TUniversite d'Etat du Dakota du 
sud, de 1 Universite d'Etat du Dakota du Nord, cette region lointaine du 
des explorateurs fran ? ais, les Verendrye, arriverent en vue des montagnes 
xocneuses. 

LE FAR WEST 
( La resolution suivante a ete votee par les membres du corps enseignant et 
les etudiants d'un college construit sur une haute montagne qui domine 
J immense plaine du Mississippi, le College du Colorado: 

' Le College du Colorado, situe sur la rive gauche de cette 
fameuse vallee du Mississippi qui fut exploree par d'intrepides 
Francais et dont ils prirent possession au nom de la France, 
adresse ses plus cordiales salutations aux instituteurs et eleves des 



50 

ecoles, aux professeurs et etudiants des universites de France, ce 
pays lointain dont la sympathie et l'assistance ont rendu possible 
l'existence meme de notre nation. 

A ces Allies, dont l'esprit ressemble tant au notre, nous envoy- 
ons l'expression de notre vive compassion pour les cruels ravages 
exerces sur leur beau pays, ainsi que pour toutes les pertes et les 
deuils qu'ils ont eprouves. Nous leur exprimons 1'assurance de 
notre profonde admiration pour 1'indomptable courage des soldats 
francais et pour les merveilleux exploits accomplis par eux sur 
les champs d'epouvante. Nous promettons a la France et a ses 
Allies dans cette grande lutte, notre complete adhesion a 1'ideal 
de liberte qui les inspire. Nous sommes resolus nous aussi, quel 
qu'en soit le prix, a ne pas deposer les armes avant que le jour 
de la liberte, de la justice et de la fraternite se leve enfin sur le 
monde tant eprouve par la guerre. Puisse cet heureux jour ne 
pas se faire longtemps attendre. 

Voici deux telegrammes, l'un de 

L'Universite du Colorado: 

" En Thonneur de la France et en temoignage de notre grati- 
tude pour les efforts quelle fait en vue de la realisation des 
espoirs de la civilisation, pour son devouement inlassable et desin- 
teresse a la cause des arts, des sciences, de la liberte et de 
l'humanite, notre universite envoie son salut a tous les educateurs 
de la grande Republique sceur. Nous sommes heureux que la 
France immortelle et l'Amerique fraternisent aujourd'hui sur 
les champs de bataille, comme elles n'ont cesse de fraterniser 
jusquici dans les arts et dans les sciences. Pour tout ce que la 
France a fait, pour tout ce quelle fera encore nous la remercions 

et nous raimons." 

Livingston Farrand 

President 

l'autre de 

L'Universite du Montana: 

" Les etudiants, les membres du corps enseignant et tous les 
fonctionnaires de l'universite vous seront toujours tres reconnais- 
sants si vous pouvez faire comprendre aux universites de France 



51 

toute 1'etendue de notre admiration pour la perseverance, l'esprit 
de sacrifice et l'heroisme supreme dont le peuple francais a fait 
preuve pour la defense de la liberte humaine. 

" Par la, les maitres de l'enseignement et les etudiants de 
France ont apporte une contribution immortelle a la cause de 
1 education de 1'homme libre pour tous les temps a venir." 

Edward C. Elliot 

Chancelier 
Tous les autres Etats auraient ete represent*,, et je crois pouvoir !e dire 
sans exagerahon, toutes les autres universes ainsi que tous les autres 
col eges des Etats-Unis auraient exprime des sentiments semblables si 
seulement .Is avaient eu le temps de le faire. Aussitot ma mission decidee, 
es choses se sont passees si rapidement qu'il a ete impossible d'aviser a 
temps les Etats du Pacifique pour recevoir leurs reponses qui sont evidem- 
ment en route. 

LES COTES DU PACIFIQUE 
Un seul message nous est parvenu de ees rivages lointains et ce sont des 
paroles d une grande envolee, Ce message emane du President de 
1 Umversne Leland Standford, le Dr. Wilbur, et ,1 convient de remarquer 
qu.lsexpr.me au nom de tous les membres du corps enseignant et des 
etud.ants de ee vaste groupement, lequel est presque aussi loin de New- 
York que New- York est eloigne de Paris. 

"A Monsieur le Mmistre de Instruction publique en France: 
Honore Monsieur, 

' Puis-je me permettre de vous presenter ainsi qu'aux recteurs 
des umversites de France, le salut de tous les membres de luni- 
vers,te Leland Stanford. Nous tenons a ce que vous sachiez 
quels sont nos sentiments de gratitude profonde et eternelle vis-a- 
vis de la France pour ses nobles sacrifices a l'egard de la cause de 
la civil.sat.on. Nous tenons a accomplir notre part et a vous 
vemr en a.de de toutes les manieres possibles aujourd'hui meme 
et tout de suite, a.nsi que dans l'avenir. Adressez-vous a nous 
sans aucune contra.nte, soil indiv.duellement, so.t collectivement, 
si nous pouvons vous etre utiles." 

Ray Lvman Wilbur 

President 



52 

Revenant aux cotes de l'Atlantique, j'ai l'honneur de vous transmettre 
le salut cordial de nos deux ecoles nationales d'instruction de Tarmee et de 
la marine, l'Academie militaire des £tats-Unis a West-Point, notre Saint- 
Cyr, et l'Academie navale des £tats-Unis a Annapolis. 

Les officiers qui en sont sortis prendront bientot euxmemes la parole au 
nom de ces ecoles, et cela dans un langage qui, nous en sommes assures, 
fera honneur a leurs'maitres. 

Le Directeur de l'Academie navale parle en termes emus de la visite 
recente des officiers et des marins du vaisseau amiral francais, le " Jeanne- 
d'Arc," ainsi que du bon souvenir qu'ils ont laisse. 

Je ne puis mieux terminer se succinct rapport de ma mission que par 
le poeme dedie aux femmes de France et qui a ete compose par les 
eleves de l'un de nos principaux colleges de jeunes filles, le College Vassar, 
de l'£tat de New-York. La traduction en a ete faite par une jeune fille 
americaine, Miss Mary C. Lines, qui a passe son baccalaureat en France, 
et est un symbole de l'Alliance que nous voudrions voir se developper de 
plus en plus pour la cause de la liberte et de la justice sur la terre: 

"A vous, jeunes nlles de France, qui par votre attitude cour- 
ageuse dans la souffrance, avez ennobli la jeunesse et la femme, 
nous, jeunes filles du College Vassar, vous adressons notre salut, 
fieres de pouvoir nous dire vos camarades et persuadees qu'apres 
avoir puise des forces dans le sacrifice, nous saurons, nous aussi, 
nous montrer dignes du fardeau que nous avons, desormais, a 
supporter en commun." 

FRANCHISES 

Ce n'est plus l'heure des paroles banales 

Qui tombent de levres insouciantes. 

A l'Atlantique perilleuse, 

Nous confions ce message de bonne camaraderie. 

Jeunes filles de la belle France, 

II y a quatre ans nous vous cherchions 

Dans nos reves, les yeux eblouis 

Par la lumiere de celle qui mourut pour vous, 

Cinq fois cent ans passes. 

Alors les reves. . , et puis l'orage. 

Votre destinee se grave 

En lettres de feu et de sang. 

L*-bas, dans nos foyers encore paisibles, 

Nous fremissions devant le defi, 



53 

Defi inattendu et subit 

Qui paralyse vos forces. 

Mais, devant l'ennemi, sublimes, encore, 

Vous tenez fermes 

Avec toute l'ancienne vigueur de votre race, 

Tandis que vos glorieuses figures nous eblouissent. 

Maintenant, face a face avec le barbare 

Nous connaissons votre agonie dans le triomphe 

Et c'est avec de pieuses mains que nous cherchons a placer 

Notre nom * cote du votre. 

Comme vous, sans peur, nous voulons engager la bataille. 

Et, abandonnant les plaisirs de la jeunesse 

Lutter avec le courage de la femme. 

Pourtant la Vie et la Paix sont bien douces 

Quand les bourgeons du printemps eclosent ; 

Le son du clairon est rauque 

Le pas cadence des soldats en marche 

Resonne pour rien par les senders. 

Avons-nous bien compris? 

Ce sont les appels au combat qui nous convient, 

Nous aussi, a confondre le destructeur. 

Jeunes filles francaises durant de longs mois 

Nous avons vu votre jeunesse, 

Votre bonheur, vos ambitions s'evanouir 

Comme une etoile dans le ciel. 

Nous avons vu surgir en vous 

Un sentiment de vaillance qui vous rend fortes 

Et sans crainte au milieu des mines. 

Puissions-nous montrer la meme ardeur que la Pucelle 

Dont le courage resonne a travers les siecles. 

Et suivre sans faiblir la voie qu'elle a tracee. 

La vraie signification de ma mission ne reside pas seulement dans le 
grand nombre de messages que j'ai le grand honneur de vous transmettre 
mais dans le fait que ces messages vous disent la pensee d'un peuple sincere- 
mcnt . et profondement imbu des principes democratiques. Et ils expriment 
la meme idee a laque e notre President Wilson a donne une si noble forme 
lis solhcitent votre alliance sur le terrain intellectuel aussi bien que sur le 
terrain militaire. Si 1'alliance militaire doit d'abord s 'imposer, elle doit 
etre envisagee comme le prelude de 1'alliance intellectuelle. 

Aux Etats-Unis, nous nous demandons comment nos ecoles, nos colleges 
et nos universes pourront contribuer ensuite a la victoire de la cause pour 
laquelle nous aurons ainsi combattu. Nous avons commence a nous ranger 



54 

aux cotes du peuple francais en combattant avec lui dans les airs, sur les 
mers et dans les tranchees. 

Les listes des braves tombes au Champ d'Honneur que j'ai vues dans 
toutes les universites, les colleges et les ecoles de France que j'ai visites, 
nous disent assez ce qu'il faut attendre des jeunes gens de nos universites, 
et je crois que ces derniers feront leur devoir aussi heroiquement que leurs 
camarades francais. Mais, avec la France et l'Angleterre, nous devons 
regarder encore plus loin, examiner l'avenir reserve a ces universites aux 
portiques desquelles ces Tableaux d'Honneur sont si fierement exposes, et 
determiner ce que, plus tard, nous pourrons faire pour reconstruire, ren- 
forcer, elargir ces institutions vouees au developpement de l'humanite par 
la liberte et la justice. 

Quelques-unes de vos ecoles n'ont pu amcher ces tableaux d'honneur: 
car elles ont ete detruites avec une joie malsaine, comme ces arbres des 
districts devastes qui seraient maintenant en fleurs. Manifestation d'une 
civilisation pervertie qui, frappant les institutions destinees a aider une 
democratic a s'elever jusqu'a une vie plus noble, croit atteindre la demo- 
cratic elle-meme; mais manifestation qui nous indique aussi quelles seront 
les premieres restaurations a realiser lorsque nous aurons ensemble libere le 
pays ou ces ecoles ont ete detruites. 

Au dela de ce cote materiel de la question, nous devons aussi, et des 
maintenant, elaborer un plan d'enseignement qui rendra plus feconds encore 
les buts que nous nous proposons. 

Nous devrons avoir, dans 1'enseignement, comme il y en a a la guerre, 
des " officiers de liaison ", c'est-a-dire des professeurs d'echange entre la 
France et l'Amerique, d'une part, entre la France et l'Angleterre, d'autre 
part. Et les etudiants d'Amerique et les etudiants de France doivent se 
reunir dans ces ecoles ou Ton s'entraine pour les luttes que nous aurons 
encore plus tard a soutenir sur le terrain de 1 'esprit. 

II est essentiel que nous ayons deux langues a notre disposition : l'anglais 
et le francais, non seulement arm que les uns puissent suivre, comme c'est 
maintenant le cas, la pensee generate des autres, mais aussi pour arriver a 
une comprehension parfaite de nos moyens d'action et de nos methodes 
reciproques. 

II faut aussi que nous autres Americains nous assimilions les methodes 
patientes et desinteressees de l'esprit francais, ainsi que le courage calme, 
modeste et invincible de votre coeur. 

Nous devons encore etudier quelle est la meilleure contribution que nous 
puissions apporter a l'oeuvre commune, pour l'avenir. Les deux suggestions 
que je viens de faire ont deja recu un commencement d'execution. Mais 
pour le moment, les messages que j'ai eu l'honneur de vous apporter vous 
revelent notre unanime sentiment et vous prouvent notre reconnaissance, 
notre admiration et notre profonde affection. 



55 



RECEPTION BY THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC 
INSTRUCTION 

I was received, in the late afternoon of the day after the night 
of my arrival, by the Minister of Public Instruction, echoes of 
whose proclamation to the schools of France on the occasion of 
the entering of America into the war I heard in all parts of 
France. I quote here a few paragraphs. (The full text in 
translation was published in the Bulletin of the University of the 
State of New York of May 15, 1917.) 

The Republic of the United States has just entered the struggle which 
in concert with our allies we are carrying on for freedom of the nations, the 
safeguarding of our civilization. 

I expect very shortly to ask the teachers under your direction to devote 
on the same day an hour to the celebration of this great event. I shall send 
you, to be read to the pupils, an historic outline and a lesson drawn up by 
eminent professors of our University. But immediately after the Easter 
vacation and in accordance with the desire expressed by Parliament I beg 
you to invite the teachers to make known to the children of all our institu- 
tions and all our schools the message of President Wilson, the telegram 
addressed by the President of the French Republic to the President of the 
Republic of the United States and the addresses delivered by the Presidents 
of both houses of our legislature and by the President of the cabinet of 
ministers. You will invite the teachers to point out the civic and moral 
significance of the tremendous step which we have witnessed. . . . 

Certainly the Republic has known its difficulties and its internal dis- 
orders; it is not without crises that it has developed the radiant principles 
which it bore in its bosom. It has nevertheless proceeded with its task. 
Battered by many a storm, the French democracy has lived and grown. 
Its consecration is at hand; a solidarity which heretofore was unknown 
binds France, the leader of nations, to all peoples that are lovers of beauty, 
peace and liberty. Humanity bleeds from the wounds of France and the 
world acclaims with shouts of joy the first signs of her coming victory. 

The teachers of our schools will know, I am sure, how to exalt in the 
hearts of their pupils the sentiments of confidence and pride which are 
strengthened by the fraternal and magnificent action of the great Republic 
of the United States. 

His special message came later in the form of a reproduction, 
in Sevres, of the figure of a young man of noble countenance, of 
studious mien and lithe body, who has taken the implements of 
war and donned the casque — a visualization of the French 



56 

university man of whom the Recteur of the University of Bor- 
deaux 1 has written out of the sorrow and pride of his own loss. 
The statistics of the university men killed, wounded and missing 
were not exposed, in the thought perhaps that they would give 
comfort to the enemy, but the percentages would have borne 
high tribute to the heroism of those young men who have left 
all and followed the colors into the gates of death. President 
Butler's phrase is pertinent, " the flower of France and therefore 
of modern civilization." The flower has indeed been stricken by 
the red frosts which have blighted, too, the flower of England. 
The letters of some of these youth published recently in ' The 
Atlantic '" reveal their quality. One can only hope that the 
trees will bear even richer fruit another decade and century 
because of what has fallen upon the soil in which their roots lie. 

But I saw in this figure the prototype of our college men, of 
even sturdier form, who have responded to the call of the same 
higher motives, but without the immediate appeal of an invaded 
land, yet with a spirit and devotion unsurpassed in any country. 

If any one has had question as to the spiritual soundness of 
our universities and colleges, the question has been quieted by the 
sublime offering of their teachers and students in this crisis. 

AUDIENCE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC 

I was formally received by the President of the French 
Republic at the Elysee Palace in the late afternoon of the Sat- 
urday after my arrival, and was given the opportunity to present 
the message from Governor Whitman (most artistically engrossed 
and illuminated) embodying a copy of his proclamation of 
' French Day " for the State of New York. This presentation 
brought a most cordial immediate response and a later message 
in which the President said that he would be very grateful to 
me if I ' would interpret to the student youth of the great 
Country, Friend and Ally, and to the teachers who guide their 
spirit toward the ideas for which the civilized world battles 
against barbarism, the deep sympathy which is shared by all the 
teachers and students of France." 



1 'L'Universit6 ct la Guerre" by R. Thamin, Recteur de l'Acadomie de Bordeaux. 







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57 

University of Paris 

A formal welcome was given by the University of Paris, at a 
meeting called to receive the messages which I bore. The mem- 
bers of the four faculties — law, letters, science and medicine — 
assembled in the lofty council hall of the Sorbonne, and after 
an introduction by Dean Appel, in the absence of Vice Rector 
Liard x — that great scholar and administrator, born in the same 
village as William the Norman, being too ill to attend the 
meetings — I presented the addresses of the Regents and the uni- 
versities, with the distinguished assistance of Monsieur Legouis, 
professor of English. 

This address became the basis for a discussion as to practical 
steps for a closer cooperation between the universities of the two 
countries. (That which relates to degrees will be found in 
descriptions of the several universities.) 

Two noteworthy movements toward this end are now under 
way: One has as its object the establishment of a hundred 
American fellowships in French universities, the other the pro- 
vision of a Maison that shall become a center where American 
and French students in Paris can come into closer social relation. 
Dean (now Major) Wigmore, of Northwestern University, is 
the chairman of the first organization, and Professor Barrett 
Wendell of the other. In connection with the former and pre- 
liminary to it there has been published by the Committee of One 
Hundred, sponsors for the movement, a volume entitled " Science 
and Learning in France," which gives in attractive form informa- 
tion concerning the history and present work of the University of 
France. 

It will be pertinent to speak of another in which only the 
American universities and colleges are directly concerned: the 
establishment of a center for American university and college 
men in France during the war. I was asked to represent the 
American university men of Paris in organizing the American 
committee to raise the necessary funds for this purpose, but I 



1 M. Liard has since died and France has lost her greatest university administrator. 



58 

found on arrival that such an organization was already under 
way. I therefore urged the Paris committee to associate itself 
with this American committee, which under the American Uni- 
versity Union in Europe and under such trustees as Dr Anson 
Phelps Stokes, President Goodnow and President Hutchins, 
has already assurance of adequate initial support and competent 
service. Its primary function is social but it is hoped that it will 
later take on educational functions and establish extension courses 
nearer the front. 

But there is still another provision that should be had definitely 
in mind, namely, systematic provision for the teaching of French, 
particularly to college men, not only here but in France, and not 
only for its immediate practical military utility, but also for its 
later value in our cooperation with France in strengthening and 
enlarging the institutions of freedom and justice in the earth. 
Instruction in the French language, literature and history, during 
the periods of leisure in the war, will give basis also for the 
more thorough pursuit of these subjects after the war, in the 
French universities, which in time will equip for teaching, par- 
ticularly in our secondary schools, when the need for such teach- 
ing is unquestionably to be greatly increased. 

These objects are all worthy, as I believe, of the cooperating 
interest of American universities and colleges, but while organiza- 
tions are already under way for three of these purposes, it remains 
to organize specifically the fourth. The Y. M. C. A. and the 
Knights of Columbus are making plans for recreation and some 
incidental instruction, but I think we should not let go by unim- 
proved the opportunity which the physical presence of thousands 
of young college, university and professional men in France and 
near England gives, to bring them within the touch of the greatest 
minds in Europe and to equip them with the language of French 
thought. 

The American University Union in Europe, as intimated 
above, offers an ideal organization for beginning such work in 
supplement of the Army interpreters and the elementary instruc- 
tion undertaken by the Y. M. C. A. 




The faculty room in the Sorbonne in which the messages to the French 
Universities were first delivered, about one hundred representatives of the 
four faculties being present 



59 



ADDRESS BY DEAN APPEL 

Mr Finley has greatly favored us; he has come to the Sorbonne to pre- 
sent to us * * * the messages of more than a hundred universities 
and schools. 

He has had the thoughtfulness at the very friendly luncheon of last 
Wednesday to present to us General Pershing, the great soldier whom 
our colleague, Larnaude, has saluted with the title of new Lafayette. 

Mr Finley has thus expressed in a striking way the double sentiment 
which animates us: union and universal brotherhood, union in the struggle 
against the enemy of Right. 

The University of Paris has solemnly responded to him with an address 
of thanks, a copy of which we present to him signed by the members of 
the council. 

But what we wish to bring out in this address are the sentiments of 
affection and of deep sympathy * * * which we extend to all the 
members of the American universities whom he represents. 

These sentiments which have long existed on University ground have 
taken a new intensity in this war, to which the United States comes with 
all their irresistible strength, all their resolute will to assure the triumph of 
liberty and of justice. 

Our enemies, the Germans, have formed the habit, in their frenzy of 
narrow positivism, of denying the efficacy of the sentiments of humanity and 
of justice, of affection and of sympathy among nations, and of treating 
them as sentimentalities without value in the consideration of material 
interests in the instruments of war. They have discovered, a little late, 
that these sentiments have a reality as real as steel and explosives, that 
they animate hearts, that they engender wills capable of creating arms, 
the explosives and instruments of war which will assure the triumph of 
justice and of right and will put an end to the reign of violence. 

Gentlemen: I propose the health of Mr Finley as representing the 
sister universities of the United States as symbolizing the union which will 
give us victory, and I present to him in the name of all our colleagues, in 
token of that union, the medal of the University of Paris. 

MESSAGE TO AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 

UNIVERSITE DE PARIS 

Paris, June 19, 1917 

The University of Paris expresses to the American universities its pro- 
found gratitude for the eloquent addresses which they have sent to the 
French universities on the occasion of the alliance of the two peoples in 
the formidable conflict which fills the world. 



60 

France has known for a long time that on both sides of the Atlantic 
in the two sister republics, the universities are putting forth efforts toward 
the same ideal — more truth, more justice. 

But deeds have added to words their shining confirmation. In response 
to the voice of a great university man, the illustrious President Wilson, 
America has claimed as a glorious privilege her part in the sacrifice. In 
the immense national movement which has carried the United States toward 
the defense of Right and of Liberty, the American universities have been 
in the first ranks. The flower of their youth are prepared to combat beside 
ours. Their idealism, which is as disinterested as it is heroic, compels our 
admiration. 

Such bonds are indestructible. 

The remembrance of the old alliance, personified in the names of 
Lafayette and of Rochambeau, had created the germs of a durable friend- 
ship. The new alliance which combines in a common amity the chivalrous 
adversaries of former days, prepares the way amongst all for a closer and 
more fruitful collaboration out of which there will arise for all humanity 
a better future. 

The University of Paris, in greeting the American universities as com- 
rades-in-arms, greets in them the makers of future peace and expresses to 
them its unalterable fraternity. 

(Signed by L. LIARD, vice recteur of the University of Paris, and the 
Deans of the several Faculties.) 

Nancy 

The visitation of the university centers outside of Paris began 
with the journey to Nancy, a city of great charm but with much 
of its beauty screened from sight for protection against bombs, 
for it is still within range of the German " long gun " (over 
twenty miles away) which, according to recent reports, has again 
begun its operations. I have spoken of the School of Medicine. 
The Faculties of Letters and of Law have also but a handful of 
students. The Faculty of Science holds a greater number, prin- 
cipally of young men preparing for engineering service. But the 
recteur (M. Adam) and the professors are keeping alive the 
institution, busying themselves with war tasks that have been 
added to their accustomed ministrations in peace. This beautiful 
city that was before the war of about the population of Albany, 
has lost nearly half its inhabitants, but the people who remain go 
on with their daily work, interrupting it only to run to shelter if 
exposed, when the alarm gives warning of approaching hostile 



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61 



aircraft. (And the alarm came the night after I reached Nancy, 
and I saw my first sky battle from Square Stanislas.) One ele- 
mentary school building had been completely wrecked by a shell, 
and the presence of mind of the master, as I have said, alone 
saved the lives of the children. Some of the lycees were used in 
part as hospitals, and two or three thousand children from the 
invaded territory were being cared for in the casernes, or barracks, 
a cheerless environment for these exiled little ones, who are given 
such care as the hospitable hearts but meager means of their hosts 
can afford in the midst of their own privations and anxieties. 
Some of the older girls had been gathered into a little and well 
conducted school outside of the barracks, where they were taught 
the domestic arts. They sang, too, but their songs, which were or 
Alsatian coloring, were as the songs of those in exile by the rivers 
of Babylon. A few boys, too, were given hand training in 
another school of like type. The other schools were not in session 
on the day of my visit, for it was a holy day, and in the midst of 
the sombemess of the streets one saw girls in white, with their 
veils, and boys with the great white bows upon their arms. But 
the holiness of the day did not deter the aircraft raiders from then- 
expeditions. On the other hand the raiders did not deter the 
kindly and ever courteous ministry of the Prefet and his wife 
Madame Mirman. 

From Nancy a journey was made, by military car, southward, 
now through a great manufacturing center where young women, 
donning men's attire, had taken their places in the mills; now 
through a military rendezvous to and from which thousands of 
soldiers were moving; now through village after village devas- 
tated by fire and shell (including Gerbevieller, where I found the 
famed Sister Julie still carrying on her hospital amid the ruins) , 
on to St Die, the village in the Vosges, where it is contended by 
high authorities the name "America " was first printed and put 
upon a map. It was still under the eye of German guns, though 
not occupied by Germans, and people pass to and fro across the 
stream, from one side of the village to the other, behind screens 
that simulate trees. There the high school or college, used for a 



62 

time as a hospital, is now restored in whole or part to its old uses, 
and the people go their wonted ways in the streets free of the 
German soldiers that for a little time filled and possessed them. 
The mayor presented me with a copy of a resolution of the town 
council which proposed to name one of these streets "rue 
lVWerique." A teacher whom I saw there, nurse for a time, is 
now teaching English again, amid the scars of war, and in a 
village not far away American women are beginning to rebuild 
the broken houses. 

At Nancy again I met at a luncheon the Recteur and the 
deans of the various faculties, many of whose professors spoke 
with pride of their Alsatian origin. I presented the messages of 
the American universities and colleges, in response to the address 
of the distinguished Recteur (author of a classical treatise on 
Descartes), which I have had the great honor to carry back to 
America. 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR ADAM 

UNIVERSITE DE NANCY 

In the name of the University of Nancy, which in 1871 received as 
a precious trust the French faculties of Strasburg, so that you see before 
you Alsatians as well as men of Lorrain, I thank you. 

The universities of the United States could not choose for bearing to 
France their messages one who would be more sympathetic. 

You belong, in fact, to that elite of American professors who have every 
winter for more than twelve years come to teach us in Paris and in our great 
university cities to know America, its thinkers, its writers, its poets, and 
above all its great place in the world. For years we have been welcom- 
ing you to Nancy. What a happy institution and how fruitful in its results ' 
All these guests of a few weeks have retained a faithful remembrance of 
h ranee, hrom the beginning of the hostilities, they have never ceased to 
speak in America, in the newspapers, in magazines, and in their books, in 
support of our country. 

There existed between our two countries old ties of relationship which 
had been lost. You have found them again. In the beginnings of your 
history, you have shown what part the French played in the discovery and 
colonization of the Mississippi, as well as the English on the Atlantic coast 
You have inscribed on the first page of your excellent book this simple 
phrase which sums it up and which might be understood in every sense of 
its meaning, " The French in the Heart of America." 



63 

We should henceforth also be able to write a book which would be 
called, " The Americans in the Heart of France." From now on we shall 
carry the Americans in our hearts. 

And it is not only because of the vanguard of volunteers, the flower of 
your youth, which since the autumn of 1914, and without awaiting the 
decision of their government, have come to serve in our ranks in aviation 
and ambulance of the first line, eager to become our comrades in arms. 
To the valor of these young men, all students of your universities, must be 
added the good that has been done by your committees, in which so many 
men and women with big hearts are devoting themselves to our cause 
incessantly. Quite near by, in the invaded region an unfortunate people 
owe them their being saved from famine, and in this very district, in 
Meurthe-et-Moselle and in the Vosges, you have come to the assistance 
of our war orphans as soon as you heard of them, no matter how large 
their number. To enter our hearts you have found the surest way: you 
have become the benefactors of our children and mothers. 

You have come from a country, Mr Finley, where more than with us, I 
believe, the Bible and the Gospel are read. Nevertheless, in thinking of 
you I wanted to reread the parable of the vineyard ; and I thought of the 
workers of the first hour, then the third, the sixth, the ninth and finally 
the eleventh. But it is impossible to apply it to you. The difference is 
too great. In the first place, we who were the first to enter the war — and 
you know it well — because we were threatened and attacked (and how 
savage was the aggression), we do not murmur against those who were late 
in joining us. Understanding their reasons, we were always grateful to 
them for their sympathy, and today we welcome them fraternally. On 
the other hand, they, although convinced that their assistance will be deci- 
sive, feel that it will cost them a long and hard effort. But, above all, we 
who endured the heat of the day have not increased our pretensions as the 
fight progressed. As the price for our blood, we claim only — as in the 
first hour — what is due us, however, with the guarantee that it will never 
again be taken from us or even menaced. As regards you Americans, 
your President, who is a former university professor, has expressed it nobly: 
you have no hidden selfish thought and your sole ambition in this war is to 
see the triumph of justice and liberty. 

It is this high ideal that we salute here unanimously, and which, more 
even than the comradeship of arms, will assure in our two great republics, 
the union of the French and American universities. 

Since my return there have come through the hands of M. le 
Recteur Adam, messages from the lycees of the east of France, 
so beautiful in expression and in illustration that I wish I had 
space in which to reproduce them all. I show the reproduction 



64 

of two of them on an insert, but I give here two others in transla- 
tion: one from the Principal of the Lycee of Verdun (whose 
pupils are all scattered) and one from a pupil in the College of 
Neuf chateau: 

This message of springtime and of hope which has come to us from 
across the Atlantic from Vassar College could not be delivered to the pupils 
of the College of Verdun. It is to their Principal that M. le Recteur of 
the Academy of Nancy has entrusted it. The scholars and their professors 
are dispersed over the whole of France ; their beautiful college is in ruins ; 
its terraces, only yesterday blooming with roses, are today armed with 
cannon and criss-crossed with trenches. During the first days of the 
invasion many of them were forced to fly from their flaming villages; some 
of them have been carried off into captivity ; one professor reentered F ranee 
only to die there ; one scholar, after a slow agony, is no more, — she too 
a victim of this atrocious war. 

But through you — for your fraternal message brings us new con- 
fidence — " our long agony will be changed into triumph " and the day 
draws near " when that spirit will reign which has known how to hew its 
way across all obstacles." 

When that day comes the message of the young girls of America to 
the young girls of France will receive a place of honor in our reconstructed 
college, there it will bear witness forever that you did not wait until our 
country was completely destroyed to unite with us and to aid us in re- 
building it. 

The Principal of the College of Verdun, 
A. Stoltz 

N euj chateau 

Young girls of America, your message so full of sympathy warms our 
hearts just as the aid of your great country renews our hopes. 

I shall not know them again, those somber days of the outbreak of the 
war, when the enemy drove his talons deeper every day into the beautiful 
land of France. 

Sept. 5th, 1914. The dusty road is obstructed with endless files of 
peaceful citizens flying before the enemy. The earth trembles under their 
heavy cannon. Then it is our turn to leave and as the last houses of 
Revigny disappear from view we give ourselves up to weeping. 

Twelve long days without news ... at last the glorious victory of 
the Marne brings us back to our country. 

The partly burned village is a desert. Heaps of blackened walls, streets 
impassable with stones, our house still standing but empty, the doors open, 
the windows without panes, our hearts are torn by the thought of the 
familiar belongings profanated. 

Today in the splendor of June, Revigny is reborn to life. The faithful 
inhabitants have returned to the country. f he houses arise from behind the 
barrier of our heroic defenders. Soon the enemy will be repulsed, since your 



65 

great people came to unite themselves with the free peoples of Europe, and 
the peace of reconstructed cities will not again be troubled, because you 
intend with us to reduce the belligerent people to impotence and to make 
of this war the last war. 

Marie Therese Forest, 
(Born at Charleville, Aug. 6th, 1899) 

Through the valleys of the Meurthe, the Moselle and the 
Marne, where one saw many graves in the fields, soldiers almost 
every rod of the way, and observation balloons and aeroplanes 
always in the skies (with now and then the smoke puffs of 
exploding shells), I returned to Paris and then set out south- 
ward and westward, visiting Dijon, Lyons, Grenoble, Nimes, 
Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Poitiers, Rennes and Caen, 
as complete a tour as one could make, for Lille was still beyond 
the trenches. 

The details of these journeys and visits, covering nearly two 
thousand miles and schools of every type, can not here be pre- 
sented. I can do little else than give setting for some of the 
messages which these visits evoked, notably the rectorial addresses 
which were made through me to the universities and colleges of 
America. 

Dijon 

At Dijon I visited first of all, in the environs, a village school, 
the nearest approach to our rural school, and was favorably 
impressed by the seriousness and thoroughness of the provision. 

Here is a brief description of my visit to that school. 

As it was a Sunday and there were no schools to be seen, I was driven 
to see, on a hill a few miles distant, a monument, the tribute of a member 
of Napoleon's staff to his chief. It represented the awakening of the 
Emperor from his long sleep, a fantastic bronze which must evoke the 
thought in many .a visitor as to what the Emperor would say if only he could 
actually wake and see what is going fiercely on near his old Waterloo. 

But there proved to be something on the way to the hill-top grove that 
was to me of greater interest than any memorial of Napoleon, and of more 
promise to France than his awakening. It was a village school, the nearest 
approach to our boasted and loved little red schoolhouse. For there are 
no country schools in France. At any rate, in all my travels of twenty- 
five hundred miles I did not see a counterpart of our little lone open-country 
frame huts for which I am always looking when I travel in my own State. 
The country schools in France are in hamlets or villages huddled against 
a hill or by some stream, usually by a chateau or a towering church, whew 
3 



66 

the peasants gathered for shelter and protection and sociability by night, in 
earlier days, however far they traveled to cultivate their fields by day. 

The schoolmaster was sitting in front of his schoolhouse, his wife 
at his side, resting in the afternoon of his holiday, for the master lives 
in his school, and the children are but his large family. So far as my 
limited observation went the school was the schoolmaster's home, and his 
business was quite as seriously important to him as that of the Minister of 
Public Instruction or of the Prefect was to them. His one room was a 
microcosm of France, and here her wealth was represented in specimens 
and her history remembered in pictures and in legends upon the walls. 
What impressed me most was the care with which the master had prepared 
for his next week's work. There, in a book most scrupulously kept, was the 
whole program, showing what he intended to cover during the next few 
days in morals, in civics, in history, in arithmetic, etc. There is nominally 
compulsory attendance up to the age of thirteen, but there is no such 
central insistence as here. In looking over the records I noticed that some 
days were clear of absent marks, while other columns were cloudy with 
them. I asked the reasons and learned that the fair days in the books were 
rainy days outside when all could be in the school, and that the cloudy 
days in the book were fair days outside when some had to be in the fields. 
Which reminds me of the observation of a Sister of Charity, who said 
' We can not pray for God's beautiful moonlight nights since they are the 
best nights for the raids of the air." 

The school yard was planted in vegetables, but they had not completely 
crowded out the roses, some of which called La Gloire de Dijon were paying 
their fragrant summer homage to the women of France. And out some- 
where in the edge of the village there was a large tract which the children 
were cultivating as a school for the use of the community, or the state, in 
its hunger. 

This village was not far from where some of the grapes are grown of 
which the most famous wines of France have in the past been made, but in 
the little school there was very conspicuous advice in posters concerning the 
ill effects of alcohol. 

It is such a schoolmaster as this sturdy man who had been at the front 
and had come back to his duties again, who becomes, especially in such 
times as these, a representative of the Government for giving official infor- 
mation to the people about matters of common concern, such as the gather- 
ing of gold, the subscriptions for such loans as our Liberty Loan, care of 
fields, protection against pests, provision for orphans, and so on. And 
sometimes, I suspect, he is also the Mayor of the little community; at 
least I found one little school in the Mairie where I had gone to find the 
parish records where the Mayor was teaching the little group of boys whose 
pictures I here show. That was several years ago, and I suppose they are 
all now on their way to the front if not aclually there. 

I visited next a large elementary school in the city of Dijon. 
There again I was struck by the intense seriousness of teacher and 
pupil in the work, and by the quietness and self-restraint of all. 



67 

The teachers were nearly all women. I recall one lame man and 
the sturdy master who was beyond fifty years of age. And I 
recall seeing later in the day a wounded teacher who called him- 
self an American in part because he had an American wooden 
leg. But I saw here, as elsewhere, the portraits in the school- 
rooms of young men teachers who had gone to the trenches and 
had perished there. Flowers were daily brought to put beneath 
them, and I saw in several rooms this motto : 



Men of France : Your soil is defiled ! 
What did you do yesterday? ] to help, 

What will you do today and tomorrow ? j to liberate it 

Answer the Dead who question you! 
* Peace through Victory only ' 



These visits were followed by a meeting with the faculties of 
the university and by an assembly in the historic hall of the uni- 
versity, where the Academy of Dijon had sat when it awarded 
the prize to the discourse of Jean Jacques Rousseau on !' The 
Influence of Art and Science on Morals." Here were gathered 
not only the professors of the university, but teachers from the 
lycees and from the elementary schools, two hundred or more, 
the schools having been dismissed that this expression might be 
given of their appreciation of the messages brought from America. 
Beneath the statues of Rousseau and Bossuet, the recteur of the 
university, Monsieur Boirac, whose studies in psychology are 
known in this country, presented in English an address which is 
here reproduced: 

ADDRESS OF RECTOR BOIRAC 

UNIVERSITE DE DIJON 

Dear Mr Finley: 

It is the second time that the University of Dijon has the honour of 
receiving your visit. In the year 1911 she heard you, in an eloquent 
lecture, on the history of the first relations of your country with ours, when 
the bold French pioneers explored and colonized the wide regions of North 
America, thus preparing, many centuries beforehand, the ways for the 



68 

future French-American alliance. Now, at this solemn hour when the 
great Republic of the United States is going in its turn into a world's war 
in order to defend by the side of the French Republic and her allies the 
holy cause of justice and mankind, you come to bring to the universities 
and schools of France the cordial greetings of the universities and schools 
of America. With a deep emotion which causes our hearts to vibrate with 
gratitude, admiration and most joyous enthusiasm, we accept the message 
of friendship sent to us through your mouth, and we say to you, in the 
name of our university and our schools: " Be welcome among us! ' 
After a few weeks, you'll return to your country. Tell your fellow citizens 
that we are profoundly touched by the marks of sympathy with which 
they overwhelm us; that we are proud also to have them for companions 
of war in the present struggle for the triumph of our common ideal, and 
that we hope, when war will yield to peace to continue to go with them 
hand in hand on the path of science and civilization. Make them assured 
that on its side the University of Dijon will do her best to entertain with 
American universities the most brotherly relations and to give your students, 
if they will give us the honor of mingling with ours, the most affectionate 
hospitality. We shall keep, dear Mr Finley, of your too brief visit an 
unforgettable remembrance, and I dare express the hope that you also 
will think sometimes with pleasure of the hours spent among us in our old 
city of Burgundy. 

BoiRAC 

Recteur 

(The Rector who had lost his son in the war and whose wife 
had died suddenly, has himself gone the way of Rousseau and 
Bossuet, but before his going he caused to be sent me a 
photograph of the famous "' Salle des Actes," which is here 
reproduced. ) 

Many messages addressed to young women in America have 

come from pupils of the several classes of one of the lycees, some 

in French, some in English. One of these I quote in part: 

. . . We trust in your strength and devotion, you belong to a 
race which carries courage to the point of heroism. And you, our sisters, 
now enter a new life, one of intense but noble suffering, and you enter 
it in spring, the loveliest season of the year, when our hearts open wide 
to beautiful ideas and noble aims. We trust in the promises of the year. 
We girls love this season because Nature is in keeping with our spirits. 
But in these years of grim war, there is blood on the white spray; the 
soft beauty of the twilight reminds us too much of the contrast between 
ruins and blossoming trees. The calm of the purple evening speaks too 
much of the great Silence of Death. But still spring is the season of hope, 




Salle des Actes " de l'Academie de Dijon where Rousseau was awarded 
the prize of the Academy for his first treatise on education 



69 

the birth of a new life. And you, girls of America, and we, girls of 
France, are waiting for the dawn of a new life, of a reign of peace, 
and love among mankind. We, who have suffered before you, love you, 
our sisters in suffering. 

14 Let us strive and hope together. Let us work and suffer for the same 
lofty aims, for the same spring of a new and nobler life. 

ISABELLE MENERET " 

And I must quote also an unusual address by M. Bataillon, 
the dean of the faculty of science: 

We should like, Mr Finley, to greet you in a worthy manner and you 
will excuse me if I attempt to do so without going out of a domain which 
is familiar to me. In my way I shall say here, before you and before my 
compatriots, that which bears upon the friendship of the people, who are 
generously extending their hands to us by bearing witness to the marvelous 
scientific progress achieved within the last twenty-five years by the United 
States of America. 

I have the honor of representing at Dijon experimental biology, a branch 

in which your country excels. 

Exactly thirteen years ago you published a new periodical destined to 
have a billiant future: " Le Journal de Zoologie Experimental ." Its 
first number appeared before the world of science under the patronage of 
an international committee including three Frenchmen. I was a member 
with Delage and the lamented Professor Giard. The publication created 
a great stir, especially in Germany. 

W. Roux, professor at the University of Halle, claimed and still claims 
to treat this domain as a German monopoly. As for " Les Archives du 
Mecanique du Developpement " which lately brought together the 
researches of the world, to which I, together with my American and 
Italian colleagues, have contributed, should they lose a preeminence pain- 
fully won? 

The concern of Roux showed itself at first by an insidious question: 

" Why," he asked your Harrison, " does Le Journal de Zoologie 
Experimental " appear without an index? The admirable answer Harri- 
son gave him was: 'The index? Why, you have given it in your 
Archives." 

And in fact, Roux had elaborated and remade this large and bulky 
index so encumbered with abstractions and so inaccessible to the common 
people that it was necessary to explain it with a glossary of several hundred 
pages. 



70 

These were the obstacles that our American colleagues had to meet. 

When a periodical makes its first appearance in the " Memoires sur It 
Dentale et la Patelle " ; when these " Memoires " bear the signature of the 
same E. Wilson to whom we owe the valuable research work on the 
Amphioxus and which illustrate today his great cytologic studies on sex: 
this is progress which asserts itself, it is the immediate conquest of the 
dominant positions. I purposely underscore the results whose high import- 
ance even among us has not always been understood. 

And, by one concrete example alone, is defined the position of American 
biology as opposed to German biology. 

This position, Roux believed menacing for his country. And some 
months before the great war, he uttered a cry of alarm. ' We Germans," 
he wrote, in substance, " in this domain which is ours, we are going to find 
ourselves outstripped [by the United States] if Tve are not already." 

He concluded, following the tradition by an appeal to the public powers. 
He urgently requested the Imperial Government for the millions of marks 
necessary for the creation of an immense mechanical institution of develop- 
ment in which would be brought together all the technical resources for 
pure scientific research and the study of its applications. 

Gentlemen, I am not of those who believe in the omnipotence of the 
ashlar, and when I think of our hecatombs, I have a very clear impression 
that the only ashlars whose need will be felt tomorrow — will be men. 

These men whom we shall lack, your great republic has, and science 
counts on them. 

But why am I obsessed by an old proverb: " No man is a prophet in 
his own country.*' Is this current coin in the United States as in France? 

You surround with attentions and with honors the eminent strangers who 
benefit by your generous hospitality. Such biological fame appears to us 
from here, encircled by a shining aureole. This generosity honors you and 
delights the men of science the world over. 

But the impartial spectator finds in your schools, national products equal 
in value to all your imported products. The country which, in an almost 
new branch, possesses men like Wilson, Morgan, Harrison, Davenport, 
Castle, Conklin, Whitman, Parker et al. (I do not attempt to enumerate 
them — so numerous are they) ; the country in which a body of earnest 
women unravels successfully the most delicate and the most intricate prob- 
lems ; that country has no reason to envy the Old World. 

Also hospitable France is profoundly touched by your fraternal manner. 
With full heart, we accept the powerful collaboration which you offer us. 
In certain domains we shall be perhaps your debtors; we shall attempt to 



71 

make up for it in others. If we have the good fortune to draw your young 
men to our laboratories, they will receive here the most cordial, the warmest 
welcome. I add that even in Burgundy in our little Thebaide, they will 
find all the resources needed for free and profitable research. 

But why should I leave my role of bearing witness? 

United to your democracy for progress, as for the defense of liberty, we 
greet with affectionate recognition the eminent messenger from the co-worker* 
across the sea. 

We offer our tribute of admiration and our most cordial good wishes to 
American thought, and (since a biologist benefits by the word) to the 
privileged country which has become and will remain " The Eden of the 
Sciences of Life." 

Lyons 

At Lyons I was escorted by the committee of learned men 
who met me at the station, to the city hall, where the mayor, 
M. Herriot, a man of great ability and fame, offered every 
courtesy within his reach. Of this I took advantage to visit, 
first of all, the excellent school established by the city of Lyons 
for the reeducation of the mutilated soldiers. It is a work to 
which a small volume might be devoted (and concerning which 
a volume 1 received since my return has been written. I present an 

illustration intimating the achievement of this notable educational 
offspring of the war). Other schools of especial interest which 
I visited, in company with the mayor's representative, M. Giourju, 
a member of the conseil general, were those established, with 
private aid, for the vocational training of boys and girls. Par- 
ticularly striking was the work done by the boys in mathematics 

and mechanical drawing far beyond that which is customary 
with us. 

Later a meeting of all the faculties of the University was held, 

the dean of the Faculty of Law, M. Josserand, presiding in the 

absence of the Recteur, M. Joubin. The American addresses 

were presented, with the assistance of M. Thomas, the efficient 

Professor of English. The Recteur later sent an address, which 

follows that of Dean Josserand : 

1 Une Ecole de Reeducation Pwfessionelle des Grands Blesses de la Guerre, Tourvielle 
par Gustave Hirschfeld. 



72 



ADDRESS BY DEAN JOSSERAND 
Mr President, Gentlemen and dear Colleagues: 

In the absence of the rector, who by reason of official duties has been 
called away from Lyon, I have the great honor to receive today, in the 
name of the university, the eminent Commissioner of Education of the 
State of New York, who will devote to us a few brief moments in the 
course of the pilgrimage which he is making in our principal university 
centers. 

While extending a welcome to our illustrious visitor I regret that no other 
authorized voice but mine should be heard within these walls; you will all 
believe me if I tell you that I am overcome with emotion. Like you, my 
dear colleagues, I feel that President John Finley does not pay us a 
common fraternal visit ; what he brings us here, with all the weight of his 
high office and all the buoyancy of his soul, is: the greeting of America, 
the great republic, which has joined hands with her older sister and which 
will not loosen this clasp, until at length our common aim shall be real- 
ized — the destruction of an unjust force by the triumph of justice which 
at last has become strong, by the triumph of right. 

For, Mr Finley, the President of your great republic has said in 
undying words, great as the cataclysm which has come upon humanity, 
" Right is more precious than peace "! Who then could, without emotion, 
in the tragical hours in which we live and in this house of justice recollect 
this admirable word which forever will refute the impious variations which 
the philosophers beyond the Rhine amplify with an infernal delight, about 
the theme of Force, Violence and Necessity. This work which you bring 
to us, Mr President, will be a living commentary — It is vibrant in the 
flags which mingle their colors at the front of this building; it will be the 
light toward which we turn, as it will become the war cry of our brave 
soldiers. And later it will be a rallying sign for both of our countries — 
for I know you feel that our entente must not be limited to the duration of 
the war; forged in the fire of action, our friendship will not cool off when 
peace comes; it will only consolidate the two peoples and especially the 
universities of the two countries will always draw more tightly the bonds 
woven in the noise of cannons; we wish to enter into the soul of America 
just as you seek to know the soul of France and infinitely profitable rela- 
tions will be established or intensified between our intellectual centers. We 
like to think that your professors in ever increasing numbers will cross the 
Atlantic, just as you welcome with your warm hospitality those of us who 
will carry the French word to the other side of the ocean, and the students, 






4 



\J I 






Illustration of what is being done to equip mutilated soldiers for useful 

employment again 



73 

following the example of their teachers, will without any doubt vie with 
each other in the great intellectual contest which will vivify science for the 
widest benefit in methods, applications and ideals. 

Should I be accused of drawing a too optimistic sketch of what will be 
after the war, my answer would be that the present suffices to caution the 
future; has not a plan of exchange just been created by the initiative of a 
great American, for the profit of our French students, and have not various 
committees already been formed with the aim of intensifying the university 
life of our two countries? Good wishes come to us from all over. When 
men like you, Mr Finley, take such a noble cause in hand, when they are 
seconded in their efforts by a whole nation alert to intellectual pursuits, the 
game is now in advance. No! the students of free America, the students 
of all civilized peoples, will not wish to go and ask for lessons in culture 
at universities where conventions are but scraps of paper, from philosophers 
who teach that " Right is the politics of force," that necessity knows no 
law. This terrible war will at least have had this advantage, that of 
removing the masks and of offsetting civilization against " Kultur," the 
fetish of Force against the worship of Right. It will suffice to draw the 
logical conclusions of this situation, now in its clearness, and this will be 
the privilege of Americans, such as you, Mr Finley, to have sown in greater 
storm the harvest which will soon be gathered. 

Therefore we bid you welcome, Mr President, and we beg you to accept 
our gratitude for your faithful and devoted work, for the cordial sympathy 
which you feel with our country and our universities, and we hope that 
when you return to New York you will kindly carry to your fellow country- 
men what you have witnessed in France, especially in Lyon, of hearts 
beating in unison with yours; we hope that you will also consent to carry 
to the American universities the sincere greetings of the universities of 
France, and we wish to express to the highest authority in your country our 
admiration and devotion. 

You have said, Mr President, that the French are in the heart of 
America; be assured that the Americans are and will remain deep in the 
bleeding heart, the heart of France — France forever grateful ! 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR JOUBIN 

UNIVERSITE DE LYON 

Lyon, June 9, 1917 
The University of Lyon to the Universities of the United States: 

The University of Lyon, met in general assembly on June 5, 1917, to 
welcome Mr John Finley, Commissioner of Education of the State of New 
York, after having heard the messages coming from the highest authorities 



74 

of the United States and especially its universities, expresses to them its 
great gratitude; it sends to the universities of America its cordial and 
affectionate greeting; it expresses the wish that the present trial, met and 
overcome together, may contribute to make more intimate the intellectual 
bonds which have traditionally existed between the two countries; it hopes 
that the exchanges of professors and students between the universities of 
the two sides of the Atlantic will become more numerous, to the great 
advantage of science whose ideal, methods and application can only gain 
by such reciprocal penetration; it addresses its thanks, stirred by this 
expression, to the intellectual and great philanthropies of America whose 
active sympathy and generosity contribute toward a realization of this pene- 
tration; it sends especially its sympathetic remembrance to the distinguished 
professors and the young instructors in English who during these last years 
have brought the good American word to our city ; and finally — adopting 
the admirable word of President Wilson that " Right is more precious than 
peace " — confident in the efficiency of the inestimable aid brought to the 
cause of justice by the United States, it expresses the hope that, thanks to 
the awakening of the conscience of all civilized people, the allied nations 
will continue unflinchingly the hard task before them until the peaceful 
reign of right shall have been definitely established. 

JoUBIN 

Recteur 

There has come to me since my return a little book of messages 
in verse from women in the university addressed to the young 
women of America. I reproduce one of these messages in the 
original with the preface in translation. 

The students of the University of Lyon are happy to respond to the 
gracious message of the young girls of America with a message of warm 
sympathy and common hope. 

Why should we not love each other? Americans, in the dawn of their 
history, have seen the French, under the leadership of Lafayette and of 
Rochambeau, bleed and die for American liberty. Several years later, 
the Constituent Assembly inscribed, in its famous Declaration, the great 
principles which Washington had solemnly proclaimed to the Congress of 
Philadelphia. 

The people of your great country did not wait for the official entry of 
America into the war to send to the Allies their gold and especially to give 
their blood. We shall honor them as much as our own dead, these who 
have voluntarily sacrificed all for France ; they can all pronounce the proud 
words of Kenneth Weeks who said to his friends in enlisting: 



75 

" I have always loved France with a great love; now that she is in 
danger I can prove to her my fidelity." 

And they who have fallen bravely are numerous, like Harold Chapin, 
killed at the battle of Loos, like Alan Seeger killed at Belloy-en-Santerre, 
July 4, 1916, after having written to his mother: 

M Mother, if I do not return, be proud as a Spartan mother. Death, 
after all, is not so terrible. It signifies, perhaps, something still more 
beautiful than life." 

On the second of last April, the union of America and of France was 
sealed by the noble message of President Wilson who, in the name of your 
people, consecrated America to the struggle of right and justice to bring 
liberty to the world. And henceforth, following the word of M. Ribot: 

" The starry flag will wave beside the tri-color, our hands and our 
hearts will be joined to fight in unison." 

A L* AMERIQUE EN ARMES 

SaLUT! grande Amerique, 6 sceur de notre France! 
Ton amitie loyale est pour nous l'esperance. . . 
Du pays mutile tu vis couler les pleurs 
Que sur le so sacre faisait repandre, infame, 
La horde criminelle, insensible a tout blame, 

Des ennemis devastateurs ! 
Nos soldats sont tombes, fauches comme des herbes, 
Tous courageux et fiers, heros nobles, superbes, 
Courant pleins d'allegresse au devant du trepas. . . 
Dans leur elan sublime ils ont l'ardeur du juste, 
Et disent en ralant, mot supreme et auguste: 

(< La France ne perira pas ! }) 
Maintenant, Amerique, au sang de ces victimes, 
Le sang de tes Enfants s'unit, vengeur des crimes; 
Heros aussi, puisqu'ils n'ont pas peur de souffrir. 
La Gloire de ces preux sera le mausolee, 
Car ils auront montre, dans la sainte melee, 

Qu'ils savent, eux aussi, mourir! 
Ce n'est pas seulement sur les champs de carnage 
Qu'au monde tu fais voir ce que peut ton courage; 
Les guerriers ne sont pas qu'au milieu des combats: 
Par vos efforts hardis, hommes, enfants et femmes, 
Qui ne connaissez pas les villages en flammes, 

Vous devenez tous des soldats! 

Therese Lion, 

Licenciee es lettres (anglais) 



76 

Grenoble 

At Grenoble I was met at midnight by the hospitable com- 
mittee with the most amiable recteur, M. Coulet, at its head. 
The charm of this place is known throughout Europe and should 
be throughout America. Its university has offered special induce- 
ments to foreigners in language courses, and its environment of 
mountains capped, some of them, with snow, continues to offer 
physical inducements. In the early morning, at six o'clock, I 
saw the young men of the 1918 class who had been called to 
the colors, at their rigorous drill on the tree-encircled esplanade 
along the Isere, beneath the towering cliffs, and strong sturdy 
youth they seemed, and wonderfully alert. What I saw there 
is doubtless typical of all departments of France. 

There was opportunity to visit one of the schools for the train- 
ing of teachers (and there every student takes English through 
the course) before I attended the special assembly, which was 
called to welcome an American with messages from the Presi- 
dent and from the universities and colleges. The hall was filled 
by university professors and students, by teachers and pupils from 
the schools, and by citizens, all or most of whom seemed to under- 
stand English, and with them were a few Americans in study 
there. The girls from the teachers training school sang 
"America " in English as well as their own " Marseillaise " in 
French and the Recteur made an eloquent address, which, despite 
the personal references, I present in translation to my American 
audience : 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR COULET 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I have requested you to assemble here in order to receive Mr John 
Finley, Commissioner of Education and President of The University of 
the State of New York. Once before Mr Finley has been the guest at the 
University of Grenoble and undoubtedly more than one among you remem- 
bers the conferences which he gave there under the auspices of the Harvard 
Foundation. 

His visit today has another object. The day after the great American 
republic had deliberately taken a stand by our side and by that of our 
allies for the defense of right and the liberty of peoples, Mr Finley crossed 
the Atlantic to bring us the greeting of the universities, colleges and schools 



77 

of the United States, to tell us in what spirit they have received the decision 
of the federal government, the faith which they also have in the victory, 
and the hopes they set in the triumph of the common ideal, for the estab- 
lishment of a new order for the benefit of a better humanity. 

That you appreciate with me the nobility of the deed and the extent of 
the action, I wish first of all to persuade our guest of today. 

The Minister of Public Instruction on receiving Mr Finley took notice 
of the speeches with which he was commissioned but as they ought to go to 
all those for whom they are really intended — to all the schools of France, 
to their teachers, to their students, to their pupils — Mr Finley brings them 
to the universities of the provinces after having delivered them to the 
University of Paris. 

And that is also why our university does not wish to keep for herself 
alone the honor which she has received. She begs you to join with her to 
hear these voices which come from America so that in your turn you can 
spread them and they can awake in all hearts the echo which should answer 
them. 

Thus is explained, Sir, the presence in this hall of personal represen- 
tatives of the faculties, colleges and schools of Grenoble, of their students 
and of their pupils, all united in the desire to thank you for having come 
to us. 

The welcome which I have the honor of wishing you in their name is 
full of admiration and gratitude: admiration for your country which has 
so greatly done itself honor by showing its intentions as it has just done, 
gratitude to those who have entrusted to you the mission which you fill so 
worthily, gratitude also to yourself for the share which you have had in 
the change of opinion which has come to pass in the United States from 
the neutrality of recent times to the brotherhood of today. 

In presenting my compliments to . . . Mr Finley ... in 
in greeting him as the envoy of the universities, of the colleges and of the 
schools of America, I invite you, ladies and gentlemen, to greet also one of 
the best friends of France. 

This friendship you had shown to us for a long time by asserting your 
belief in the French method of teaching, by placing very high the spirit 
which inspires it, the worth of its teachers, the importance of the French 
contribution to the progress of human knowledge. 

It is your great William James who said, " The excess of technicality 
and the dryness resulting from it are appalling in the young students of 
American universities. This technicality, this dryness influences them so 
they follow too closely the models and methods of Germany." 



78 

And he added: ' What is rare is to find a particular point of view 
joined to an extreme clearness in the power of bringing into play the whole 
critical preparation necessary to show thoughts." 

This ideal is that very one to which all our system of education tends, 
that which, according to Mr James, our scholars and our thinkers have 
realized. 

Another of your fellow countrymen while characterizing our teaching 
methods, informs us of the reasons for the feeling which you have never 
ceased to show for them. " French teaching," says Mr Barrett Wendell, 
" combines in so admirable a way precision and breadth of view, it so 
calls attention to detail yet endeavors to keep everything in accord with the 
great underlying principles, that it seems more inspiring than any other 
system of which we know." 

It is in truth for that, that French science is noted. It is because of that 
quality that you, as well as William James and Barrett Wendell, have 
kept wishing for a closer union of the American point of view and the 
French universities and sciences. 

I have intentionally quoted from others, statements of the reasons for 
our common sympathies in order to associate them with our gratitude to 
you. But it is you only we thank for one thing — your personal effort to 
bring about the intellectual union of France and America. 

In the first place, you have been associated with that movement which, 
each year, brings us one or more professors from the American universities. 
One very precious result of this has been the increase of the bonds of per- 
sonal relationship between the scholars of the two countries. It is as 
exchange professor that the University of Grenoble had the honor of 
receiving you some years ago. 

You have again shown your active sympathy with French methods of 

instruction in the management of that great institution of which you have 

been until these last years, the president of the College of the City of 

New York. 

***** 

From the first day you have been with our great friends, with your 
former ambassadors, Robert Bacon and Myron T. Herrick, with the 
venerated Charles Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, with 
President Nicholas Murray Butler, with President Lawrence Lowell, 
with so many others whose names are graven on our hearts. Your friend- 
ship without stopping has passed through halting places that others have 
had to cross more slowly. 

You had seen from the start where the right was and where lay the 
duty of America. A certain impatience one might think must have animated 
you. 



79 

You who had reckoned so largely on the debt of the United States to 
France, you at times must have feared that they would let pass the opportu- 
nity to pay off this indebtedness. 

You may, however, be assured. Long before America entered the 
war we found what American neutrality for France was. Its debt your 
country has paid by the assistance which it has given us from the first day 
in the most various forms; assistance to our wounded, aid to the peoples 
of the invaded districts, restoration of devastated regions, adoption of the 
orphans of the war. On the other hand, many of your young men, not 
awaiting the decision of their country, have come to us as doctors, aviators, 
as fighters, and how many already have died for us! 

But now be wholly content. The declaration of President Wilson, 
affirming the resolutions of America, frees you from all indebtedness and 
forever. 

A pride comes to us, you will pardon the expression, that on these lands 
of which a part was formerly French you have been able to raise such a 
harvest of generosity and noble idealism. 

In your name, ladies and gentlemen, have I greeted Mr John Finley as 
one of the best friends of our country. 

To the universities, colleges and American schools from which he brings 
us greetings, we can give assurance that they could not have chosen an 
ambassador more agreeable to us nor nearer to our hearts. 

To the Universities, Colleges and Schools of the United States: 

For many days all France has followed with passionate admiration the 
noble proceedings of the great American Republic in the midst of the 
grave events which have led her to take freely her part of danger and of 
honor in the immense world conflict. 

Grenoble claims the honor of always having felt an ardent sympathy for 
the American colleges and schools. For the last years numerous teachers 
and students have crossed the ocean to come to us, have passed through or 
remained in our Dauphiny University, learned men who have taught in 
our chairs, young people who have sat under the instruction of our faculties 
and who all, after they left us, have remained our friends. 

We greet the great democracy of the United States, which has arisen 
in a sublime rapture, to avenge the violated rights, the outraged human con- 
science, the beauty of the world odiously profaned, and which will not 
lay down its arms until the ideal of justice and of peace, so magnificently 
proclaimed by President Wilson in his speech at the Capitol, is realized. 



80 

We greet the teachers and the students who, from both sides of the 
ocean offer the best they have — the genius of their race, their strength, 
their thought, their heart and their blood — and who thus seal the holy- 
union of the free and civilized peoples. 

We greet the American universities, always the advance guard of 
Knowledge and Duty! We greet all the colleges and all the schools of 
the United States of America! 

COULET 

Recteur 

Montpellier 

From Grenoble I went to Valence (where I had opportunity, 
between trains only, for a conference with the inspector for that 
district, who most courteously came to the station to spend the 
brief time with me, and who has since sent a cordial message from 
one of his lycees) , then by way of Tarascon to Nimes, where I 
visited a very good lycee situated between the famous amphi- 
theater and the no less famous Maison Carree. Here I found 
fifty or more Serbians, all pursuing the same courses as the French 
students but under their Serbian master. The boys occupied 
dormitories in the lycee and also assisted in tilling the fields, for 
the students were farming a large plot in the environs of the city. 
Here I saw, too, for the first time, premilitary and physical train- 
ing going forward, though I nowhere saw any such gymnasium 
provision as is made in many places in the United States. And 
I here saw also evidences of the undertaking of medical inspection, 
which will doubtless be made general and compulsory though 
now it seems to be left to the determination of the authorities of 
each school. 

Then on to Montpellier. There again, after hours of visi- 
tation which included a hospital for the wounded soldiers and the 
medical school of medieval fame (where I saw among other 
interesting memorabilia the gown of Rabelais), I was received 
by the faculties of the university, and was asked by the Recteur, 
who is the dean of French rectors, and has served France with 
special distinction in several posts, to carry back the following 
message : 



81 



ADDRESS BY RECTOR BENOIST 

ACADEMIE DE MONTPELLIER 

Montpellier, June 8, 1917 
The Rector of the University of Montpellier to Mr John Finley, President 
of The University of the State of New York 

Dear Mr Finley: 

At the moment of your leaving France to return to America, I wish to 
express to you in the name of the University of Montpellier, our sympathy 
with the great American Republic, from which you brought us a message 
at our meeting of yesterday, June seventh. 

Like all Frenchmen, the members of our university hailed with enthu- 
siasm the entering of the United States in the great conflict which divides 
the world. It has been a joy for them to think that as in the days of 
Washington and Lafayette, Frenchmen and Americans will fight side by 
side for the cause of liberty. 

But it is not enough that our two countries should be united during the 
war. It is necessary that they be united when, after the conclusion of 
peace, the universities will devote themselves with new ardor to their 
scientific tasks. We hope that, thanks to the establishment of fellowships, 
it will be possible to create between our universities and yours, systematic 
relations which will be profitable for our two countries, and no less profit- 
able to science and civilization. 

Our university will remember the visit with which you have honored it 
and in which it sees the pledge of durable and fruitful understanding 
between the two countries. 

Antoine Benoist 

Recteur 
Toulouse 

I traveled by night past Carcassonne (which I saw in the moon- 
light), to Toulouse, and there spent a good part of the day in 
visiting an ecole primaire superieure, that is, a school whose course 
extends three years beyond the six years of the primary, cor- 
responding in period and purpose to our so-called junior high 
school (and there I found, by the way, such a course in general 
science, admirably taught, as I have hoped we might initiate in 
the same period here) ; an ecole normale, in the environs of the 
city; and a school, the first of the sort that I had seen, for the 
training of boys and girls for special war industries. Toulouse 



82 

is swollen in population by such industries. Forty thousand men 
and women are employed in the powder works alone, I am told. 
In the late afternoon I was received by the officers and pro- 
fessors of the university in the presence of the mayor, the prefets 
representative, and an audience of teachers and citizens that filled 
to overflowing the university hall. In the absence of the Recteur, 
who had been mobilized as an expert in explosives, and was 
serving in Paris, I was welcomed by the Dean of the Faculty of 
Letters, M. Dumas, whose particular message to the universities 
and colleges following his more personal address was as follows : 

ADDRESS BY ACTING RECTOR DUMAS 

UNIVERSITE DE TOULOUSE 

Toulouse, June 15, 1917 

The university and the educational institutions of Toulouse are happy to 
address their warm thanks to President Wilson, who will mark his place 
in history beside Washington and Lincoln, to President Roosevelt, whose 
energy France has always admired, to the American universities and schools, 
for the very sympathetic and cordial messages which they have sent and 
which their eminent representative, Mr John Finley, has known how to 
interpret with so much feeling. They, in their turn, give assurance that 
they have for the great American Republic, for its universities and educa- 
tional institutions, high regard and sincere friendship. They hope that the 
great fight which they are waging and which the two great republics will 
wage to the end for the triumph of liberty, of justice and of humanity, will 
draw still closer the bonds of friendship which have so long united them. 

F. Dumas 

From Toulouse a nights journey brought me again to Paris, 
where I attended a Harvard dinner. Addresses were made in 
both French and English, the Minister of Public Instruction and 
our own Ambassador being the special guests. 

I then went to see the western end of the French front, passing 
through the region across which the Germans had retreated leav- 
ing it in a devastated condition. The one school picture of that 
schoolless region which I keep most vividly is of a school building 
enough of whose blackened walls stood to show that it had once 
been an ecole municipale ; but I shall not attempt to speak of 
these experiences here. 



83 

St Cyr and Joinville 

I then visited two notable schools: one at St Cyr, the West 
Point of France, now a center for the intensive training of young 
men who are aspirants for commissions. What interested me 
especially was that their program included a very thorough pro- 
vision for physical training. The other at Joinville, on the other 
side of Paris, is a school for the special tuition of teachers who 
are to teach in the military camps and, after the war, in the 
schools, for it is anticipated that after the war there will be uni- 
versal and compulsory physical training of the children and youth 
of France. The thoroughness with which they are now training 
their teachers gives promise of an effective realization of the hope. 

In this connection mention should be made of an exhibition 
which I witnessed a few days later in the Tuilleries, where thou- 
sands were assembled to see such physical exercises and athletic 
events, seemingly new in France, as we have for the most part 
practised for years. This exhibition, called a " Manifestation 
Patriotique," was held under the patronage of the Minister of 
War but was promoted by private societies which are develop- 
ing public sentiment in support of such training. 

Caen 

From Paris I went next to Normandy, where I visited Caen, 
the seat of the University of Caen. But after the reception by 
the university authorities, in which the faculties and the students 
participated, I found that there were lycees for boys and for girls 
also worth the journey to Caen to see. If the schools of America 
could have heard the singing by the girls assembled in the hall of 
the girls' lycee, and could have heard the address by the repre- 
sentative of the teachers and of the students in the boys' lycee, 
gathered in one of the stateliest halls I have seen in Europe, they 
would know how cordial a feeling toward America has sprung 
up in the hearts even of the children and youth of France. It was 
evinced again at the ecole normale when the inspector spoke. 
There is space, however, for only the address of the rector of 
the university, Monsieur Moniez, made in the presence of the 



84 

faculties, who, standing in their robes of learning, such as have 
been worn there for centuries, were surrounded by the students, 
whose numbers decimated by war were filled by women and 
wounded. 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR MONIEZ 

UNIVERSITE DE CAEN 

Caen, June /6\ 1917 
SIR: 

I beg to introduce to you the members of the council of the University 
of Caen and the professors and students of its various faculties, all of 
them happy to welcome in you one of the most eminent representatives of 
the thought of America. 

The professors are reduced in number, for, notwithstanding their age, 
many of them, as you doubtless know, are serving in the field ; the students 
are extremely few, for, except the physically unfit, all have joined the 
army where they are doing their duty. Instead of the latter, you may see 
here some women students who will try to fill up some of the gaps we shall 
lament for a long time after the war ; but their studies do not prevent them 
from giving themselves up to those various works of assistance, the import- 
ance of which is so well known to you, and for this reason part of them 
have found it impossible to come here and join their tribute to ours. 

Both professors and students beg you, Sir, to forward to intellectual 
America the expression of their gratitude and admiration. 

Gratitude and admiration are indeed the feelings that prevail in all 
French souls after the action of President Wilson and his intervention on 
behalf of his country, in a conflict where the stakes are such that the world 
has never seen and probably never will see the like. 

Though official Germany has unceasingly quibbled to make the debate 
an obscure one before that tribunal of the civilized world where she had 
been summoned by America ; though atrocious outrages, in the true German 
spirit, have been resorted to in order to frighten you, President Wilson's 
conscience, the reflection of your nation's collective conscience, has not 
known for one instant either hesitation or even uncertainty. 

With a clear insight into facts, first, among the neutrals, President 
Wilson has declared where justice was. He has said it openly with the 
strength, calmness and dignity which become such great decisions; he has 
said it without any illusion as to the possible consequences of the step he 
took or rather of the verdict which he passed before the attentive world. 



85 

As Germany showed nothing but contempt for the solemn sentence by 
which she stood condemned, America resolved to be more than a spectator 
in the great drama. She deliberately entered the struggle for the defense 
of liberty and justice, throwing her immense power into the scale, ready 
for any sacrifices, in quest of nothing but honor, without any interest beside 
the protection of the high ideal which, in spite of the barbarians, remains 
the guiding star of mankind. 

Admirable indeed is the virtue of that nation rising in its thousands for 
the preservation of civilization and the punishment of crime. For after all 
there was no lack of pretexts, and even good reason, for standing aside, 
away from the conflict, and the messengers of the enemy had dinned all 
those pretexts and reasons into all American ears. 

Allow me, Sir, to tell you now one of the things which moved our 
hearts most deeply and which struck us as singularly beautiful and noble. 
It is the charming delicacy of feeling which made you ascribe to pure 
gratefulness that chivalrous decision of yours. You often tell us that you 
are but paying an old debt, the debt you have owed us ever since we . 
helped you in your struggle for independence. You thus show, quite 
unwittingly, that one of the rarest of virtues, the virtue of gratefulness, is 
to be found in America, and that gratefulness there is of longer duration 
than anywhere else. We know how faithfully you keep the memory of 
our great men, and you yourself, Sir, who have trusted this country with 
the education of your sons, wrote the following words a long time before 
America's intervention in the war: 

" La France . . . bien qu'elle n'ait plus aucun droit de propriete sur 
ces territoires (americains) conserve du moins le droit de toucher encore 
une sorte d'arriere de fermage, de partager les fruits des vertus humaines 
que elle y'a semee jadis. De droit la, jamais le temps ne pourra ni le lui 
enlever ni l'obscurcir; il ne saurait qu'augmenter." 

It was indeed impossible to state in a more ingenious and more charming 
way your love for our country, but while we are deeply grateful to you 
for that love, we will not allow ourselves to be deluded by your amiable 
ascription. The old debt has long been extinct and you well know besides 
that France has never thought that she had any claim upon you. You 
have the full honor of one of the most important acts in the history of the 
world, of a decision that will be attended with incalculable consequences 
far beyond the present times and the limited range of our vision. 

A few years ago, Sir, you wrote a very fine book with this title: ' The 
French in the Heart of America.'' I will not presume to praise the book 
after the French Academy has awarded it one of its prizes, but I like to 



' 86 

think that later on some historian may give a kind of counterpart to it and 
show that America is, forever and ever, in the hearts of all French people. 

MoNlEZ 

Recteur 
Rennes 

From Normandy I went to Brittany, pausing for the night in 
Laval, where I received courtesies from the inspecteur of that 
district and one of the teachers in the boys' lycee. Brittany, 
which is closest physically to America, seemed to be most widely 
and deeply cordial in its welcome. The girls' lycee gave the 
initial welcome, the girls being assembled in the beautiful garden 
under characteristic French skies that wept one moment and 
smiled the next. This charming picture has beside it another that 
has no brightness in it, save that which the patriotic spirit of the 
workers may give — the memory of the interior of the arsenal 
where nearly five thousand women, young and old, are making 
munitions. The war seems more real in this place, where millions 
of cartridges are made every week, than it does even at the front 
except in the active periods. And it was a fit sequel that I visited 
next a boys' lycee where at a most stirring assembly of masters 
and students — very like an assembly of American boys — the 
wounded soldiers who were occupying a part of the lycee, looked 
on with their nurses from a court at the side of the hall. And 
one must mention, as of educational interest, the mayor's potato 
patch in the midst of the public park, supplanting lawn and flower 
beds, though only in part, for the flowers can not be wholly ban- 
ished by the French from their gardens, their windows, and their 
streets. Out under the trees of the garden of the ecole normale 
there was another welcome, with singing not only of the " Star 
Spangled Banner " but of "America," and with addresses which 
should be heard by teachers in America, and which I hope may 
yet be reproduced. There was awaiting, however, a further wel- 
come. The university hall, in which I had spoken several years 
before, being in war use, I was received in the City Hall, the able 
and popular mayor, M. Janvier, appearing at the stately entrance 
with resolutions of the town council (in response to President 
Wilson's message) in his hand for presentation in the presence of 
the people gathered in the square. Escorted to the hall of state, 



87 

which for the few minutes of the seance was brilliantly lighted, I 
was welcomed by an audience in which the national and munic- 
ipal governments, the civil and the military authorities, the uni- 
versity, and the schools were represented. The eloquent recteur, 
M. Gerard Varet, made a moving address and was followed by 
the president of the student council, a young man who had lost 
one of his eyes in battle and who wore upon his breast the croix 
de guerre. 

The address of the Recteur is presented in translation, but one 
who did not hear it in the French as pronounced by him can not 
know its real eloquence. 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR GERARD VARET 

UNIVERSITE DE RENNES 

For the second time the University of Rennes has the pleasure of your 
visit. 

The first was in March 1911. We then received you and heard you 
in the lecture room of the Faculty of Letters. Then we had peace. Our 
students cheered you in their youthful enthusiasm, flushed with fresh visions 
and joyful hopes. Six years have passed; those are today absent; war, 
terrible war, worse than the wildest dreams, has seized them and taken 
them away. How many among them, with their young teachers, with 
many others of all ranks and all ages sleep there the heroic sleep to which 
human civilization owes the fact that it is still standing. On this solemn 
occasion, our first thought belongs to them. 

This thought does not remove us from you, but brings us nearer to you. 
It is to them that we owe your presence here among us today, to greet in you 
a great friend who comes in the name of a great people. 

First of all, you are bringing your work; at your first visit we had the 
" primeur "; since then you have put it in writing; it has become a book, 
a fine book, " The French in the Heart of America." 

The United States have the rare ** coquetterie " of gratitude; for 
nearly one hundred fifty years they have been cultivating with love their 
gratitude to France, the friend of their first hours, the companion who 
helped them in the painful travail of their young independence. Such a 
band of our common affection seems to you too narrow; you wanted for 
it a wider horizon. You went further back, through the eighteenth, through 
the seventeenth, back to the sixteenth century, to seek the magnificent 
explorers for France: Cartier de Saint-Malo, Champlain, Nicolet, Lale- 



88 

mant, Marquette, La Salle, and many others. You returned with them 
up the St Lawrence, up the Great Lakes. You descended with them the 
great rivers, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi; you have watched them pitch 
their tents ; erect their forts in solitudes which later were to become immense 
cities, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New Orleans; you have related their epic, 
their immovable loyal valor, without perfidy, without baseness, without cor- 
ruption, without a blot. You did better still ; within the limits of modern 
America in those vast regions where their traces seemed effaced, you have 
rediscovered their soul which is still present and active. You have shown 
in those regions of vast industry their generous idealism, their heroic cheer- 
fulness, which today still shines like a light from above. This book is a 
hymn to France; France has heard it with proud and solemn joy; it has 
given it the welcome it deserved; it has given it in its libraries a place of 
honor beside such others as Michelet, who loved it so. 

Besides your work, you bring something else, the wishes of your univer- 
sities and schools, teachers, students and children. In the autumn of 1914, 
in the dark winter which followed, before the Marne, after the Yser, 
later still, for months, France, as if bending over the ocean, strained her 
ear toward distant voices, expecting to hear words of comfort. The first 
came from the universities of America. Two years ago, one of your own 
men, one of your most prominent young teachers, spoke in this very place, 
in words of intimacy which touched us all, of the concern which at that 
time of neutrality filled the disturbed hearts in your highest educational 
institutions, the attachment to the Allies, the admiration for France, the 
sturdy faith in an approaching entente with France. And then we never 
forgot the first and the most severe condemnation hurled at the German 
crimes in the midst of the silence of the States, the avenging word of the 
illustrious Eliot, president of Harvard University. 

Your students — their families were worthy of their teachers. From the 
first year many among them joined our troops, many have paid with their 
lives their worship of right. One of them, an aviator, fell gloriously ; when 
the sad news was conveyed to the father, his only reply was: " It is well, 
he died for a great cause." 

And finally, you bring the voice of the whole of America: school chil- 
dren who first had the delicate thought of helping our little war orphans; 
the boys and men, who by hundreds of thousands, by millions, are pre- 
paring for the battle and sacrifices of tomorrow. The whole nation at last 
standing behind the President, who after a long self-imposed silence, has 
in imperishable words declared war on the empire of rapine, decided the 
reparations and guarantees, and outlined in a general way, the Society of 
Nations. 



89 

By these resounding manifestations all France has been thrilled. She 
has recognized in them her most profound instincts. She has found in her 
new ally her dearest sentiments which combine to make a perfect antithesis 
to Prussia, such as a Victor Hugo would have never dared to conceive: the 
democracy of peace against the monarchy of war ; the state without military 
service against the state which invented universal conscription; a people 
whose life is in broad daylight against a government of mysteries, lies and 
espionage; the ambition of idealism against the covetousness of a ferocious 
egotism; in the past as in the present, the holy wars of liberty against the 
savage wars of extermination. 

Mr Director, those who welcome you today are friends moved by the 
ardent conviction of the victory of right: the teaching force of Rennes who 
miss several of their teachers who fell on the field of honor, whose other 
friends also have joined, especially the principal administrators and military 
officials of the city, more particularly the mayor, to whom, being deprived 
of our buildings turned over to the wounded, we are obliged for your 
reception in this beautiful hall of the Hotel de Ville, which was restored 
under his care ; facing the elders, the students, the youth — or rather those 
who are left of the young men — those who are beginning and those who 
are awaiting their turn to depart ; others who have returned, as, for example, 
their president, he and those no longer in active service because of wounds, 
decorated with the croix de guerre; and then our young pupils who cast 
upon our sadness the smile of their charm, and finally, our great, doubly 
dear — a new colleague, with us since yesterday, M. Celestin Demblon, 
professor of the University of Brussels, deputy of Liege, one of the most 
authoritative teachers and one of the most eloquent orators of his country; 
among the first a solid group of young Serbians who asked to add their 
cheers to ours ; so that you have gathered before your eyes in this corner of 
Brittany the appealing representatives of the two noblest victims of this 
atrocious war — Belgium and Serbia, whom France, herself murdered, 
presses to her bleeding bosom. 

In the name of all present and absent, I greet you, Mr Director, and in 
you all the schools of America, with a fraternal salute of welcome. 

Gerard -Varet 

Recteur 

Another night journey to Paris gave me an early morning 
picture of the city whose charm has been but heightened by the 
more serious expression which she wears. The stream of gray- 
blue is always moving by night and by day, yet as quietly as 
France's placid rivers. 



90 

Early in the morning I went to visit the place in Paris where 
those who can no longer see the physical charm of Paris or the 
faces of their friends — the soldiers blinded in battle — are 
reeducated that they may begin life again. Visits to other institu- 
tions for relief or reeducation and receptions by the American 
Club, a body of American business and professional men in Paris, 
by the professors of the Sorbonne, and by the Comite France- 
Amerique, filled most of the two closing days in Paris. 

This last night will be for me forever memorable because of 
the presence of so many friends of America in the heart of France. 
But also because of the utterance of those notable friends, M. 
Hanotaux, M. Boutroux and M. Bergson who presided. I 
am able to reproduce here but a portion of the notable address 
by Professor Bergson which I am proud to have had a part in 
evoking. It was worth a journey through peril to bring back to 
America : 

" Everywhere in the universities, in the colleges, in the schools, he 
[Mr Finley] has gathered tokens of sympathy and of admiration for us. 
. . . We have them before our eyes. There are, from the President of 
the Republic of the United States, the great and noble Wilson, to the 
humblest scholar, the most touching of messages. President Finley, you 
are going in a few hours. . . . Tell everyone over there of our deep 
emotions and allow us to express to you in person all our gratitude and to 
tell you (recalling a figure which will truly serve, of one of those whose 
messages you brought, President Butler) that you have just joined several 
links — I will call them links of gold — in the chain which binds France 
to America. We will express, too, our gratitude toward other American 
delegates here present, Major Murphy, Chief of the Red Cross Mission. 
M. Murphy organized here help not only for wounded Americans but also 
for wounded French, and at the same time help for the inhabitants of our 
invaded and devastated regions. To Professor Woods who has spent 
several months among us and who fortunately is going to remain next 
year. He represents among us in an eminent way American science, learn- 
ing and philosophy. . . . 

For my part, I have never doubted that America would intervene 
sooner or later in this war, and I was sure, as I kept saying, that it would 
not be through selfish interests, through material purposes or gain that she 
would intervene ; it would be by reason of some great principle. 

I said here to the Franco-American Committee on returning from a 



91 

voyage some years ago, "America is a country of idealism, it is the land 
of the ideal." Because Americans have had to clear a new continent, to 
struggle for their existence, we have come to believe that they were men 
with selfish interests, occupied before all with material interests. What a 
mistake! He who has lived in America realizes that there is no country 
in the world where money means less. It is only necessary to see how they 
spend it, how they give it, and for what they earn it. They earn it and 
they seek for it only that they may give proof that they have made every 
effort possible. Money over there, I said, was a certificate of efficiency. 

Whoever has lived in America knows that high ideals, moral and 
religious, have the first place over there. Whoever has studied American 
literature and philosophy knows that the American soul is impregnated with 
idealism and even with mysticism. Whoever has studied American his- 
tory knows that abstract and general thoughts of morality and justice 
have always held first place. It is upon pure ideals and pure thoughts that 
the American nation was built, and it is, perhaps, the only nationality in 
the world, which was thus built consciously and freely. For elsewhere, it 
was by force of circumstances, by tradition and by a series of events that 
the constitution of this and that nation was determined. Once only in the 
history of the world was a nation built upon considerations purely ideal — 
that was the day when the nation was founded which was to become the 
American nation and the American nationality. Those who left England 
to come to colonize America were not drawn over there as colonists gen- 
erally are by the ultimate thought of material interests ; it was not to enrich 
themselves; it was not in order to find ease; it was only to find liberty of 
thought and conscience. So then, it was upon an ideal of liberty and 
justice that the states which were to become the United States were 
founded. This ideal of justice and of liberty they sum up over there in 
the words, " democratic ideal." 

What is the meaning of the word democracy as used in the United 
States? I believe that it is necessary, to give a true definition of it, that 
one comprehend the esteem for democracy and democracy's future that 
we have received for some time from over there. 

The word democracy in America is very profound in its meaning. 
Democratic rule is reason, pure reason substituted for force, for instinct 
and even for tradition. It concerns the relations between citizens within 
the state. The relations between citizens as they have been ordered little 
by little by historical incident and tradition are not the relations governed 
by justice and equality before the law. But what reason reclaims is 
equality before the law. Democratic rule is that which considers, force 
and tradition and all historical contingencies eliminated, man the equal of 



92 

man because all men have a share in a certain superior infinite nature, and 
thus the dignity of each man is preeminent and the value of each man is 
absolute. These are the relations between citizens of the same state. 

This conception of democracy is further the conception of the relations 
between states. In regard to these, what is it that tradition and force and 
instinct have done? They have brought about the oppression of the feeble 
by the strong. If we start with a clean slate and get the point of view 
from pure reason, whether the states are little or great, it matters nothing; 
they are no more than moral persons equal one to the other, equal before 
the law. 

If we accept this conception of the state and of the relation of states 
one to the other, without violence, the reign of force is done away with. 
To the reign of force succeeds among nations the rule of right. That is 
why Americans believe and say that democracy is the essence of peace. 
Thus all durable and definitive peace is the essence of democracy; it is 
this very profound idea which dominates, it seems to me, the history of 
the United States. It is because the present war presents with an acuteness 
that has never before been, the question of knowing whether the rule of 
right or the rule of force is to be established so in the world. It is for that 
reason that it was absolutely sure that if the war was prolonged, prolonged 
fully enough, America would enter this war. 

That is the decisive reason, but there is yet another. This last one I 
saw and I comprehended better and better the longer I remained in 
America. 

I arrived in America at a most critical time and I followed from day to 
day, I might say from hour to hour, American thought. Diplomatic rela- 
tions had been broken — broken under such conditions, after what Presi- 
dent Wilson said, it was in fact a declaration of war, if American shipping 
was torpedoed. Therefore war appeared inevitable. But what sort of a 
war? Was it to be a war concerning torpedoing only, a defensive war 
and consequently one that would end upon the day when the Germans gave 
sufficient assurances relative to the torpedoing of American shipping? 
Would this be a partial and defensive war, or was it to be a " whole " 
war, a war into which America would throw herself with all her forces and 
resources, with the resolution taken to put an end to German militarism? 

In other words the question presented was this: was it proposed to 
repress the aggression of the submarine as such, or would they see in that 
aggression a sign, an index of a certain state of soul of a certain nation, 
and the proof that there existed in the world a nation with which it was 
impossible henceforth to live? That was the question presented. 

I said that I could follow the gradual evolution of American sentiment 



93 

that was drawing, little by little, America to the question that whatever 
befell, it was to be a " whole " war in which America would throw her- 
self with the purpose of stamping out or stifling German militarism. For 
two months, February and March, there was amongst my friends over there 
the greatest anxiety. It was by his address of the second of April, his 
admirable, immortal address of the second of April, that President Wilson 
put an end to this anxiety. The war which he decided to wage, conform- 
ing to the thought and sentiment of the Americans was to be a whole " 
war which they would conduct to the finish — he said : to the end of 
Prussian militarism. 

I myself never doubted that that would be the answer, because I knew 
that was the ideal of America. Since I have been in America I have been 
in the closest contact with the American soul, and what impressed me 
deeply was the regard and admiration which they have for France. 

This sentiment does not date from yesterday. From the earliest times 
in America they have felt for France a certain great gratitude for that which 
she did in the time of the War of Independence. But since the beginning 
of the present war, since the Marne especially, the Americans have 
followed the events of the war with profound admiration — an admiration 
which has gone on increasing from the Marne to Verdun — and admira- 
tion for our army, for our civil population in furnishing this army and in 
maintaining it. It would be very difficult for those who have not lived in 
America during these last months to form an idea of this regard. It is 
admiration, it is respect, it is reverence, it is regard which one has for a 
moral person who has made a great, immense effect in the interest of 
humanity and above all one who has performed it in silence, without com- 
plaint and without boasting. It is admiration for that which one might 
call simplicity in sacrifice, admiration for a nation which has been given 
or which has received a mission, and which is accomplishing it with 
childlike candor and simplicity. 

The other day at the Academy of Moral Sciences while in search of a 
means of making this settlement understood, I spoke of Joan of Arc and I 
said that the Americans feel toward France what France feels toward 
Joan of Arc. The mission which Joan of Arc accomplished for us, it 
seems to Americans — it is thus that I interpret their feelings — is what 
France has accomplished for the nations. I do not think that I am mis- 
taken, but I constantly had this feeling when I was in America that they 
had this sentiment — I might almost say this sensation. This great love, 
this great admiration for France remained for a long time peaceful and 
silent in America ; then one fine day there was a revelation. It was when 
our French Viviani-Joffre Mission arrived in America. I was in Wash- 



94 

ington at first when they were there; I was in New York when they went 
to New York. The enthusiasm beggars description; thousands upon 
thousands of men quivered, doubtless without knowing why, at the burning 
eloquence of our minister, Viviani. They were shown from afar off Mar- 
shal Joffre, and I have seen mothers raise their little children in their arms 
afar off above an ocean of heads — there were fifty thousand people 
perhaps — to show them Joffre, in order that his features might be 
engraved upon their minds, Joffre, the hero of the Marne, the impassible 
Joffre, who, in spite of his impassibility at that moment, despite his efforts, 
was unable to restrain his emotions. That is what I saw. That day 
America gave to the light, and clamorously, a sentiment which had for a 
long time been left hidden deep in its heart, and it is that feeling and that 
ideal of which I spoke just now, which made America enter into this war. 
These are the two reasons for her entering the war, and perhaps they 
are one in effect after all and this love of France and this worship of an 
ideal of justice and liberty is perhaps the same thing. America has always 
had this worship of liberty which she calls the idea of democracy, the idea 
of liberty and the idea of justice. But all the history of France is the 
constant development of this same idea and this same worship, with the 
difference that we had slowly to bring tradition to the understanding of 
pure reason, in place of which the Americans were able, and of necessity 
had to come to the ideal of reason at one stroke. We have had to slowly 
and painfully, too, reform the ancient; but they at one stroke set up the 
modern. Which has the greater merit? Which was the more difficult? 

I do not know, and it matters little. This is certain that in this common 
ideal for which some have set out and where others have arrived you must 
look to find the secret of the underlying sentiments which unites America 
to France. 

And now America has come into the war and she has come into it 

II wholly," with all her resources and with an immovable will to push it 
to the finish. It is a resolution taken once for all, a decision implacable. 
President Wilson expressed it back in those days in these words : ' We 
have made our choice, we have taken our decision, and woe to those who 
stand in our way." 

America is throwing herself into the war with all of her soul and with, 
all of her resources — and these are inexhaustible. They are the resources 
of a country of more than a million inhabitants, resources in men, resources 
industrial, resources of every description. Never since the beginning of 
the war have we been more sure of victory than we are today. America 
brings not only considerable material resources, unchangeable resolve to 
conquer, but she is bringing methods of work. For the American has his 
own method of working, and that is a very rapid method. You must not 



95 

think that because she has much to do to prepare an army and to train it, 
that it is going to take a long time. Rapidity in working is a characteristic 
of the American, once he has decided to do something. And he throws 
himself into it with all his soul, according to the need, without regrets for 
the past — if there are any — and also without illusions for the future. 

It is Longfellow who put into this stanza the motto of America in which 
he says that America does not run after hope for the future nor concern 
itself with the past, but throws its entire soul into the present: 

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! 

Let the dead Past bury its dead! 
Act, act in the living present! 

Heart within, and God o'erhead! 

We can be sure that America will remain faithful to this motto. Let 
us work together, let us have patience to wait a few months, perhaps only 
a few weeks, and let us hold on even to the end and something wonderful 
is going to be brought forth in the world. For all that there has been until 
now in the world of barbarism, whether real or seeming, all that has flowed 
toward and into the center of Europe and has established a monstrous 
thing. The monster is giving forth a vile miasma with which our entire 
civilization is half poisoned. Let us hold out until this monster is 
smothered — that will be the end of the miasmas which have poisoned us 
and will be the restoration of breath to all humanity. That will be a 
true liberation. 

We owe that to our allies, and we owe that particularly to America 
who is going to join us. Let us give our thanks. 

Poitiers 

Another journey was then made out through the fertile valley 
of the Loire — in whose fields, as throughout France, the women 
are carrying on their patient and heroic labors for the support of 
her armies — to Poitiers, where, in addition to the schools of the 
usual types, I visited a place where the prominent women of the 
city furnish certain articles of food and drink at a nominal price 
to the soldiers, en repos, or in training, and also a hospital in 
what were, before the war, the dormitories of the ecole normale. 
The girls go forward with their training, but they have given their 
rooms high on the cliff looking across the narrow valley, to their 
wounded fathers and brothers, and their capable directrice gives 
attention to both school and hospital. The faculties of the uni- 
versity were called in special council, and after an address by the 



% 

Recteur, approved by their signatures the following message 
which was supplemented by other and most cordial addresses 
made by the rector and mayor and others at a banquet given 
before my departure upon a night journey to Bordeaux. The 
formal message, signed by all the professors, including a profes- 
sor in exile from Lille, was as follows : 

UNIVERSITE DE POITIERS 

Poitiers, June 22, 1917 

The council of the University of Poitiers, in its special meeting of June 
22, 1917, to which had been exceptionally invited the professors of the 
faculties at present in Poitiers, thank Mr John H. Finley, present at the 
meeting, for the honor he has done to the university in visiting it. 

It requests him to be its spokesman to the American universites and to 
transmit to them with its sentiments of brotherliness the wish 

That after the common victory, complete victory, which has become 
more certain than ever by the noble adhesion of the United States to the 
cause of the Allies, the cause of right and of liberty, the students of the 
two nations having learned to know each other on the field of battle, to 
appreciate and to love each other, may remain united in peace as they 
are in war, and that to this end there be established between the universities 
of the two sides of the Atlantic more and more close relations; and 
especially that there be established a regular exchange of teachers and 
students. 

The University of Poitiers already now assures those who will come to 
it, its most cordial hospitality. 

PlNEAU 

President du Conseil de VUniversite 

Bordeaux 

At Bordeaux, the day being Saturday, there was no oppor- 
tunity to see the schools in session, but an assembly was held in 
the hall of the university, attended in such numbers by officials, 
professors, teachers and students that many were unable to find 
seats or even standing room in the hall. The meeting was pre- 
sided over by the recteur, M. Thamin, author of the notable book 
on " The University and the War " dedicated to the memory of 
his own son who had died in the war (as had the son of many 
another recteur and university professor). After his stirring 



97 

address, which was enthusiastically received by the large audi- 
ence, he presented the message that had been accepted by 
the faculties of the university for transmission to America. This 
was supplemented by Professor Cestre, the beloved professor 
of English in the university, who not only interpreted the mes- 
sages sent from America but added something out of the records 
of Bordeaux, a transcript of Lafayette's sailing orders from that 
port. There was cheering by the students who put "Amerique " 
by the side of " France," and I found subsequently that hundreds 
of them had attached their signatures, with those of their teachers, 
to the greetings of the university faculties. 

ADDRESS BY RECTOR THAMIN 

UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX 

To the Professors and Teachers of the Universities and Schools of the 
United States, our FelloT»~Ti> orders in the Furtherance of Truth and 
of the Ideal: 

France has never doubted America. She was deeply sensitive to the 
numerous proofs of friendship and the moving tokens of esteem — indeed 
beyond her deserts — which came to her from so many men of note, and 
prominent seats of learning, and earnest groups of citizens, even before the 
dire enmity of the Central Empires had been directed at the peaceful 
republic beyond the ocean. 

When America's hour had struck, and she so nobly responded to the 
call of her conscience, we felt suddenly uplifted by buoyant gladness, 
not merely because of the powerful help thereby vouched for, but chiefly 
because of the moral strength, which accrued to our cause and of the 
decisive moral weight thrown in the scale of right and fair-dealing for 
ages to come. 

America has set the living example of a peace-loving democracy taking 
up arms in indignation at the injustice of conquest, the vileness of guile, 
the shamefulness of perjury and the ruthless insolence of " might above 
right." 

France entered the conflict constrained, feeling that submissive accept- 
ance of the supreme insult offered to a small nation would entail the final 
dominion of the " mailed fist " over the world. Ill prepared, she stepped 
forward to battle against overwhelming odds, opposing the breasts of her 
brave to the onrush of lawless violence and murderous despotism. 
4 



98 

Never since the " levee en masse " of the volunteers of the Revolution 
had the world seen such devotion of a whole people for the defense of right. 
But it was reserved to the world to witness this glorious spectacle: the 
great republic of the New World uprising in the name of the same eternal 
principles, and, without any desire for conquest, without any idea of self- 
profit, out of mere sacrifice, marshaling her legions to fight for civilization 
and the future of mankind. 

It is through no fortuitous coincidence that the clear-headed and noble- 
souled statesman who gave articulate utterance to the conscience of 
America, was for many years a professor, then a president, of a university. 
The professors and teachers of American universities and schools, as the 
professors and teachers of the universities of France, have taught the 
generations to reverence right as the firm foundation of all free common- 
wealths, and, in an uncertain future eagerly to be wished, as the unshak- 
able basis of the league of nations for durable peace. 

The masters and scholars of the university and schools of Bordeaux, 
in the names of their dead, whose record already fills so many pages of 
the roll of honor, respectfully and cordially greet the masters and scholars 
of the universities and schools of the United States, about to enter, in their 
turn, the career of danger and of glory. 

It is from Bordeaux that Lafayette, in 1777, put off westward on 
board " The Victory," with the purpose of offering to the insurgents of 
America the help of his sword and of his enthusiasm. The University 
of Bordeaux is proud to revive this memory and to express to the American 
universities and schools her sincere and eager wishes, under the aegis of 
Lafayette sailing on " The Victory.'* THAMIN 

Recteur 

I visited, before the delayed sailing of the returning ship, the 
excellent school for the training of the mutilated soldiers (similar 
to that of Lyons, but with a special laboratory for studying and 
testing various movements, under the direction of Doctor Gour- 
don) and then the institution particularly for the reeducation of 
those mutilated who have lost their eyes, a class in whose train- 
ing I have been for many years especially interested. 

Then after a journey on foot to the lonely chateau of Montes- 
quieu, at La Brede (twelve miles distant), for the last sunset, 
and back in the darkness to the ship, I began the homeward 
voyage thinking, as those who saw Helen pass, that France 
has in the beauteous valors of her soul in this great struggle 
justified all our venturing with her for human liberty. 



99 

L'ENVOI 

That which rises most clearly and significantly in my memory 
of all that I heard and saw in this hurried visit to France is not 
the sound of the guns along the trenches (though one can never 
lose that from one's ears, however loud the nearer voices) nor 
the sound of the battles in the skies by day and night; not the 
sight of the ceaseless stream of soldiers in blue or the wounded 
in the hospitals or in the schools for their reeducation, appeal- 
ing as these were, nor the sight of the ruins of villages or of the 
graves out in the fields; it is the memory of the voices of school 
children crying " vive V Amerique " ; it is the memory of their 
faces from Brittany to the Vosges and from Paris to the 
Pyrenees. Sometimes above their myriad voices one voice is 
heard carrying some clear motif of love for France, of sorrow in 
exile from devastated homes, or of hope for victory; sometimes 
it is a group of voices, as of that class in the Lycee Victor Duruy, 
singing the * Star Spangled Banner " in French, or of that 
assembly in Caen, in Normandy, where the children sang 
" America " with flowers in their hands symbolizing our colors. 
Again it is the allocution of a priest in the great Cathedral of 
Notre Dame speaking in tribute to his martyred brothers, or the 
glowing word of Viviani in the Senate, or the roar of the multi- 
tude in the Place de la Concorde welcoming the American 
general, that overpowers with its volume even the treble of the 
children's voices. And, again, it is the appeal of that university 
student, who, losing one eye in battle, had come back to con- 
tinue his studies in the university from which so many of his com- 
rades had gone forth to die in the " vales of the blue shrouds." 

But all these voices were as the expectant overture of a new 
symphony, for emerging from the black sorrow of the spring of 
1917 when a hundred thousand men had perished in a few days, 
France, repeating in her every school the message of President 
Wilson, found her hope still springing in the hearts of her 
children. And their songs were heard even in the trenches. It 
was an overture of expectancy, for the first American troops 
were approaching. They were nearing the coast of France on 



100 

the very day that its last headland disappeared from my view. 
And others were following far out on the sea. I saw one evening 
in the dusk still other ships with their cargoes of Americans who 
were to carry on the symphony with harsh and thunderous voices 
but with the same theme as that which found expression in the 
messages of the American universities, colleges and schools and in 
the responses which are here echoed. 

To these responding messages one more must be added, one 
that was running beneath the waters, far below our keel, when 
I was on the ocean returning — far even below any waiting sub- 
marines — a message of which I was permitted to bear to our 
President an original copy in the hand of that great friend of 
America, M. Emile Boutroux, the President of that renowned 
body that sent it, the Institut de France. 

INSTITUTE OF FRANCE 

The Institute of France to President Wilson on the occasion of Inde- 
pendence Day, July 4, 1917: 

On this day when the United States of America celebrates the anni- 
versary of those high achievements of valor through which they have become 
a free and independent country, the Institute of France, meeting in full 
assembly, offers fitting homage to the great President who has unceasingly 
sought to receive from the soul of the American people his inspiration, and 
who has realized in the fullest sense for the welfare of the United States 
the sublime aims set forth in the Declaration of 1 776. 

Against a power as formidable as insolent, a power that, violating all 
human rights and principles, meant to organize for its own profit the whole 
moral and material world, the United States of America, considering the 
principle in whose name they had made their revolution, a principle 
recognizing the sacred character of human rights, have come to know that 
a policy of isolation is no longer possible, and the organization of the 
world as Germany sought to bring about must have its foundation in 
liberty and not in despotism. 

The time has come for a confession of its faith and a fulfillment of its 
duty. A voice has been heard, "Thou must " ; and Young America has 
answered, " I can." 

Already the American soldiers are on French soil and have joined the 
Allies. The Atlantic is no more. 



101 

Honor to the Nation that does not want to enjoy liberty any longer, 
unless all nations, large and small, can have it. 

Brothers of America, glory to you who rejoice in mingling — as 
formerly — your colors with ours for the defense of our common ideal ! 
If those can be strong who fight for the slavery of the world and of them- 
selves, why should not those who are ready to bring all sacrifices for right 
and liberty be invincible? 

[Signed] Emile Boutroux, 

President 

A. Thomas, 
A. d'Arsonval, 
Th. Dubois, 
E. d'Eichthal, 

Vice Presidents 

Etienne Lamy, 

Secretary 

These messages in exchange between America and France, 
written, spoken, sung, are but the intimation of the new intellec- 
tual alliance which is ordained out of the mouths and hearts of 
the children, as well as prophesied out of the immortal valors 
of the soldiers and the counsels of the wisest men of France. It 
is through the children that the prophecy of the world freedom 
is to be realized. Into the union sacree of the trenches our men 
have been admitted, but it is for these children of those who 
fight side by side to keep the spirit of this union of purpose after 
the inhuman warfare is over. And that is to be promoted first of 
all by such interchange of messages between the children of 
America and France and Britain and Italy as has been begun 

such messages, for example, as that which has come from the 

fourteen-year-old girl in a Paris school and has already reached 
tens if not hundreds of thousands in the country. 

Upon this better acquaintance of our children, one with 
another, and upon the companionship of those in common peril, 
the new intellectual alliance will fill the earth. It must have 
guidance, however, of the noblest minds, and it must have 
visualization in something which all can see. It is under com- 



102 

pulsion of this thought that one sees rising in that strip of barren 
land, extending from the North Sea to the Vosges, the land 
which is called by those who fight on its edges ' No-man's 
Land " but is to the millions who look in upon it daily " Every- 
man's Land " — that one sees rising there not only the memorials 
of the struggle for world liberty in monuments and Pantheons, 
but also institutions in which the full achievement of what was 
there defended and secured for all mankind shall in fact be 
realized. In this strip must lie the campus of Democracy's 
World University or Academy. Here must its walls rise in 
soil, forever that of France, but sacred to the nations that have 
fought to redeem it to the uses of freedom. Here where the 
highest human valor has had its epiphany, the wisest will come 
into counsel to keep and advance what that valor has won. Here 
the select youth of these nations will come to study in the valiant 
air those principles for which their ancestors died, in order most 
nobly to illustrate them each in his own country. 

It will be necessary that laboratories and libraries and clinics 
and museums be located in the populous centers in France, Eng- 
land, Italy, Belgium or in other countries, but the students who 
enter this University must matriculate in the halls that stand in 
' Everyman's Land," must there find the masters, intellectual, 
who are to give them their cosmic conception of service and 
assign them to their several places of study in the planetary cur- 
riculum of Democracy — the University or Academy of the 
United World States. 

But while that university is some day to rise upon the horizon 
of nations, I would have the men and women of America know 
more of what is in France today. (I do not speak of England 
for her advantages are better known.) I therefore append a 
brief description, prepared by representatives of the several insti- 
tutions, of the universities which I visited and to which especially 
I carried the messages of the American universities and colleges. 
(A fuller account is to be found in Dean Wigmore's " Science 
and Learning in France," with richer historical background.) 



103 

I have caused to be put into italics mention of the special 
provisions in each institution for the reception of American 
students. 

But no dissemination of information here is of value com- 
parable with that which should reach our men yonder. 

Today the most effective measure of intellectual exchange is 
to be found in the persons of our young men in France, the 
flower of America's young manhood which is or will be there in 
a few months — there within physical reach of the greatest minds 
of western Europe, and of the institutions, political, social, indus- 
trial, intellectual, through which Europe has wrought and with 
which America must cooperate in rebuilding, strengthening and 
extending those broken instruments of civilization. Our educa- 
tional interests must follow these men whose studies or profes- 
sions have been interrupted, with such provision as we can make 
to see that they who have ventured all for us, shall have, not 
only for their own sakes but for the sake of this rebuilding, every 
benefit of the best that these countries have to give out of their 
longer experience. Some advantage of this tuition can be had 
in periods of furlough or convalescence during the war; but the 
greater opportunity is to come in the weeks or months of armistice 
or demobilization. For that our preparations must be made 
now. This is the duty then of the moment: to see that our men 
have, in France, and England, and Italy, and elsewhere in 
Europe, every educational advantage that our prevision and pro- 
vision can secure — till they come back to build again in their 
own land. 

I have a rare medal, designed by a Frenchman, struck in 
memory of Washington. It bears the legend " Hostibus primo 
fugatis." The enemy must indeed be put to flight. That must 
of course be the first concern of our alliance, and nothing must 
stand in the way of that; but with that and after that must come 
this new alliance of which glorious augury is given in the messages 
that flew between America and France on the eve of our actual 
alliance in arms. 




" Hostibus pnmo fugatis " 



FRENCH UNIVERSITIES 



UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 

The University of Paris is the oldest in the world, for the schools of 
Bologna, organized a little before its own, taught only law. From the 
middle of the twelfth century its reputation was known throughout Christen- 
dom and it attracted students from all the civilized countries of Europe. It 
embraced in its courses of study all the sciences known at that time. It 
was like a little state in the Capetian capital — a privileged state, and 
jealous of remaining so, under the protection of the pope and of the king; 
a state troubled, at times clamorously, agitated always, but ever progressive 
and devoted to knowledge. It justified the favors that it received by its 
universal renown and by the fame which it spread outside upon the intellec- 
tual activities of France. 

To its misfortune the University of Paris, instituted at a time when all 
the studies were subordinated to theology, did not understand how to keep 
up an intimate contact with actual life or how to assume or to continue 
the highest intellectual expression. 

The Sorbonne, which was, in the beginning, only the house where Robert 
of Sorbon, confessor of the King St Louis, lodged some students in theol- 
ogy, gradually became the Faculty of Theology, and this faculty finished 
by dominating all the others, even though the name was often somewhat 
uncertainly applied. At the time of the great humanistic movement of the 
Renaissance in the sixteenth century, the university did not seem to take 
any interest in it; life passed it by. Several attempts at reform made in 
the seventeenth century touched only the surface of things and when at 
the end of the eighteenth century the Revolution made over the titles in 
existence for all the institutions of the old regime, those of the university 
seemed to fall into disuse and it was suppressed. 

Napoleon did not delay in reorganizing public instruction in France. 
He revived the glorious name of the university, but it was to the entire body 
of teaching in the state that he applied it. Paris was no more than one of 
the faculties, too closely regulated by the government, too subordinate to 
its ends, to be at first very ardent centers in that productive scientific life 
which asks, above all, independence and liberty; that is why it was reserved 
to a republican democracy, taking up again the work scarcely launched by 
the National Convention and completing it according to the spirit of the illus- 
trious Assembly, to bring into existence a common life for the faculties 
which had been separated one from the other, and to assign to them their 
true place in the intellectual life of the nation. The foundation of the 

[105] 



106 

council of faculties in 1885, its elevation in 1893 to the dignity of the 
civil person, and at last the restoration of the name and the autonomy of the 
university in 1896-97, have reestablished, adapting it to the needs of 
the day, the ancient "Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensium," 
a corporation of masters and students of Paris. 

The new university was no longer at all theological in character, the 
Faculty of Catholic Theology having been suppressed since 1885, and the 
Faculty of Protestant Theology having become a separate school since the 
separation of the church and state in 1 906. It comprises then the four 
faculties of Law, Medicine, Sciences, and Letters, the School of Pharmacy, 
whose general character is that of a faculty, and finally a higher Normal 
School, which was made a part of the university in 1 904, and which is, 
for the Faculties of Sciences and of Letters, a sort of pedagogic seminary 
for the use of exceptional young people, who are candidates for the pro- 
fession of teaching. 

Note: It should be explained that in France the degrees of " Doctor of 
Law," " Doctor of Letters," and many others are state degrees. They 
demand certain requirements because they confer special privileges for 
teaching and practising in France. As the fulfilment of these requirements 
was of no interest to foreigners, after 1 895 the various universities estab- 
lished the " doctorat universitaire " and there were eliminated from its 
requirements those conditions which were of interest only to those who wished 
to get special privileges within the state. So the " Doctor of Letters of the 
University of Dijon," for example, is generally like the ordinary " Doctor 
of Letters " except that the student working for the former does not have 
to meet certain conditions applicable only to those who desire to teach and 
practise in France. The " Doctor of Letters of the University " corres- 
ponds to our Doctor of Philosophy. 

Further information about this may be obtained in Wigmore, John 
Henry, Science and learning in France, and in a manual entitled Les 
universites et les ecoles franqaises, published by the Office National des 
universites et ecoles franchises at Paris. In addition there is published in 
connection with almost every one of the universities a little manual entitled 
Livret de Vetudiant containing full information for students and costing 
about twenty cents. 

The minister of public instruction is ex-officio rector, that is to say, chief 
of the general administration of the university, but he does not exercise 
this function; he delegates it to a vice-rector, on whom it confers con- 
siderable importance in the scholastic life of France. Each faculty is 
presided over by its dean (for the School of Pharmacy he is called 



107 

director), chosen by the professors; he represents them before the rector 
and the minister. A council, composed of the rector (chairman) the 
deans, the director, the assistant director of the Normal School, the director 
of the School of Pharmacy and two professors chosen by their colleagues 
in each faculty and in the School of Pharmacy, conducts all the affairs 
of the university and decides questions on its own initiative in a great 
number of cases, and in others lays before the minister the solutions that it 
thinks best. The minister generally ratifies them. (The same is true for all 
French universities. Everywhere the council has the same rights.) 

Instruction is given at the university by masters who bear a great variety 
of titles: full professors, associate professors, instructors, lecturers and, in 
the Faculties of Law and Medicine, tutors. This multiplicity at times sur- 
prises foreigners, who suppose that it means considerable differences in grades 
and functions. This is not true; it is not even peculiar to the University of 
Paris. This university hierarchy, survival of an organization today which 
has nearly disappeared, has only an administrative and financial interest. 
The full professors and the associate enjoy certain honorary and material 
advantages, but the same scientific standards are exacted from all, and the 
particular authority of each one depends only upon his own knowledge and 
his own talent. 

In 1914 the University of Paris had more than 350 members in its 
teaching force: 49 for law, 1 1 7 for medicine, 76 for sciences, 87 for letters 
and 22 for the School of Pharmacy. Although this imposing number per- 
mitted the establishment of one or several kinds of courses in all important 
specialties in scientific activity, and in all branches of study, the university 
did not feel itself entirely satisfied as yet, and each one of its faculties 
studied its announcement carefully every year for the purpose of determin- 
ing the defects that experience had shown, and of finding the means of 
remedying them. Each one has prepared its program of additional courses 
which will be undertaken after the war. 

In addition, it ought to be stated that higher instruction has at Paris 
auxiliary institutions of the first importance in the various establishments of 
the state, without taking account of those which proceed from private initia- 
tive. For example, the instruction given at the College of France, founded 
in the sixteenth century by Francis I, for the purpose of supplying the lack 
of activity in science in the university of that time, embraces today an almost 
complete course of study in all the great branches of science and learning. 
The Museum of Natural History, the five sections of the School of High 
Studies, the School of Charters, the School of Living Oriental Languages, 
the School of the Louvre, the School of Fine Arts, offer to all research 
workers and all students, whatever their degree of attainment in their subject, 



108 

inexhaustible resources in their courses, their collections, their laboratories, 
their seminaries. Poor is the student of one of the faculties who does not 
find in these institutions valuable additional resources of information and of 
profitable instruction. There are in addition numerous technical schools 
where students can go to get the necessary training for the practical applica- 
tion of their knowledge. All these organs of scientific life complement one 
another and are unified in the great body of higher education at Paris. 

On January 15, 1914, the University of Paris had on its rolls 1 7,308 
students: 7569 in the Faculty of Law, 4397 in the Faculty of Medicine, 
1718 in the Faculty of Sciences, 3000 in the Faculty of Letters and 606 
in the School of Pharmacy; of this total, foreigners represented more than 
3200 members. 

To those foreigners who come for the purpose of getting a general educa- 
tion, the university opens wide all its doors without other formalities than 
the registration upon its books, called matriculation, which is permitted 
upon proof of identity as a student and payment of an annual fee of 30 
francs ($6). For those who seek degrees the university asks certificates 
concerning their previous studies, diplomas which are to be compared to 
those which it exacts from French students, or the passing of admission 
examinations. Besides and from now on it gives credit to strangers for the 
time which they have spent in college study in their own country, as it seeks 
to credit them with the results of college study accomplished in their own 
lands. All these facilities are at this time subject to revision and readjust- 
ment which must give still greater efficiency and flexibility. 

The university offers to its students public courses where the professor 
seeks to expound the results accomplished by science in general lectures 
easily understood by everyone; closed courses reserved for students, properly 
speaking; practical courses, varied according to the study to which they 
relate, and where there is given pedagogical instruction, material apprentice- 
ship for the future professor, the future scholar and the future technician. 
Besides the laboratories and lecture halls and workrooms, well stocked 
libraries are open to the students. All these means of work were to receive, 
in more than one respect, notable additional improvements, when the war 
forced the interruption of these realizations and the postponement of the 
projects planned. 

Two of the faculties of the university, that of sciences and that of letters, 
are housed in the Sorbonne, a vast modern edifice which surrounds the 
church built by Cardinal Richelieu, and which harmonizes with it. Scarcely 
had the construction of this building been completed when the rapid develop- 
ment of university life rendered it insufficient; it is for this reason that the 
erection of other buildings has been undertaken as near as possible to the 



109 

Sorbonne for the purpose of providing workrooms and laboratories which 
demand more space. The university has acquired at the top of Montagne 
Ste Genevieve, a large tract of land where it has already erected the Radium 
Institute as a sort of associate to the Institute of Ocean Geography of the 
Prince of Monaco. It had also begun there the construction of a large 
Chemical Institute and of a Geographical Institute, and had planned for 
the building of an Institute for the History of Art, when the war came 
and stopped the work. 

The Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Medicine, the Normal School and 
the School of Pharmacy have their own buildings, all of which have been 
made the objects of considerable improvements and additions under the 
Third Republic. 

The University of Paris wishes very much to revive the old traditions 
of its past and it would be happy and anxious to see foreign students take up 
again the roads which lead them to it. It is conscious of perhaps not having 
always done that which was necessary to attract and aid them so as to make 
them acquainted with and make them love it; it has decided to turn its atten- 
tion along these lines in the future. Interesting projects are being elaborated 
in its council and in the assemblies of its facilities in order to provide for 
foreign students an efficient system of guidance from the time of their arrival 
at Paris, for the purpose of making easy to students the taking up of their 
residence in the great city, all of which things will certainly be realized 
from the time that the normal life of peace shall be established. 

UNIVERSITY OF NANCY 

Lorraine has not only iron mines which are regarded as among the richest 
in the world; coal mines, which need only to be worked, have been dis- 
covered there; it is rich in mines of salt; and the works of Dombasle- 
Meurthe are among the first in the world in the production of soda. 
Lorraine is moreover an agricultural region. It cultivates hops ; the Vosges 
pastures are famous ; and a large part of the soil is covered with forests. 

For all these reasons, the University of Nancy for nearly a quarter of a 
century has been engaged in establishing and organizing technical branches 
suited to the needs of the region. 

First was the Chemical Institute, from which have gone out since 1 890, 
525 chemical engineers. Next the Institute of Electro-technology with 422 
electrical engineers since 1901 ; then the Institute of Applied Mechanics, 
127 mechanical engineers since 1907. A School of Brewing and a School 
of Dairying were plainly indicated in this region; and the Faculty of 
Sciences and the university have not failed to make them realities. The 
same is true of an Agricultural Institute and an Institute of Geology. One 



110 

of the great state schools, the National School of Waters and Forests, like- 
wise has its seat at Nancy. 

Nancy is not only the capital of Lorraine but of eastern France: it is 
a center for industry, commerce and finance for the banks of that region. 
A Higher School of Commerce and a Commercial Institute of the Univer- 
sity are maintained under the auspices of the Nancy Chamber of Com- 
merce and the Industrial Society of the East. 

Outside of these specialized branches the university has remained faithful 
to pure science. Lorraine is in fact the country of mathematicians like 
Hermite, born at Dieuze (Lorraine annexed), and Henri Poincare, bom 
at Nancy. 

The Faculty of Medicine of Strassburg, transferred to Nancy after the 
unfortunate war of 1870-71, has become Lorraine, without ceasing to be 
Alsatian, through its professors and its teachers. The Higher School of 
Pharmacy of Strassburg has likewise been hospitably received in our city. 
Nancy is then an important center of medical and pharmaceutical studies. 

The Faculty of Letters has added to its courses in literature, philosophy, 
history and living languages (English and German), a course in French 
for the benefit of young foreigners. Up to 1914 special courses for the last 
named were carried on through the year, vacations included, particularly 
from 1 903 ; an average of 1 75 male and female students pursued them 
(without counting the numerous foreigners attracted by the technical insti- 
tutes, an aggregate rising to seven or eight hundred a year) . This patronage 
came particularly from Russia and the Balkan countries. 

The Faculty of Law, which is first in the university hierarchy, has 
always regarded it as an honor to have its share of foreign students seeking 
at Nancy the completion of their advanced legal studies. 

The University of Nancy, which counted in 1914 as many as 2248 
students, awaits the end of the war to resume its work under altogether new 
conditions. After the victorious peace which will restore Alsace and 
Lorraine, it will no longer be a frontier university but the center of a region 
whose industry and commerce are to receive a most vigorous impetus. It 
will continue then to unite with its advanced instruction in the theoretical 
sciences the different courses of its technical institutes. 

More than this, it will always he one of the universities of France which 
will attract, on account of geographical situation, the greatest number of 
foreigners. They are sure to meet here again the welcome which for a 
quarter of a century has made tliis city one of the principal centers of 
France for students from abroad. 

Let us add that Lorraine, besides its natural attractions (its mines, its 
workshops, its rivers, its forests and the Vosges) will henceforth be a shrine 



of patriotic pilgrimage, with its souvenirs of the Grand Couronne de Nancy, 
its burned villages, its cities which have suffered from the war, and not far 
from Nancy, Verdun, whose sublime resistance in 1916 saved France and 
humanity. 

UNIVERSITY OF DIJON 

The University of Dijon has a Faculty of Law, a Faculty of Sciences, 
a Faculty of Letters and a School of Medicine and of Pharmacy. 

The Faculty of Law was founded at the opening of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. They teach there not only the same subjects as in the other French 
faculties of law, but there is also given a course in the history of Burgun- 
dian law. With the Faculty of Law are closely associated a Practical 
Institute of Law and a School of Notaries. 

The Faculty of Sciences, in which natural history and biology are made 
a specialty, has two important annexes: (1) the Institute of Oenology of 
Burgundy, the first in time if not the only one known in France, where the 
principles of the manufacture of wine are studied and taught, and which 
comprises three sections, namely, oenological station, agronomical station and 
Pasteur station; (2) Aquicultural Grimaldi station, established at Saint 
Jean de Losne (30 kilometers from Dijon) where the fauna and the flora 
of the fresh waters of the Saone and of the neighboring ponds and canals are 
studied. The natural history museum and botanical garden of Dijon are in 
close relation with the Faculty of Sciences. 

The Faculty of Letters has as particular characteristics a chair in the 
history of Burgundy and of Burgundian art, and a chair in the dialects and 
literature of Burgundy. 

The School of Medicine and of Pharmacy gives instruction to students 
in a four-year course. 

The library of the university has about 70,000 volumes without counting 
the foreign theses. 

The library of the city of Dijon places at the disposition of the students 
about 120,000 volumes and pamphlets, 21 1 incunabula and 1 726 manu- 
scripts. There is scarcely a work of importance on Burgundy that it does 
not possess and in some cases it has the only one in existence. The archives 
of the department of Cote d'Or and the municipal archives are very rich in 
material. 

Lastly, besides the university, Dijon possesses a flourishing high school 
of commerce. 

Foreigners can, upon registration, attend all the ordinary courses and 
conferences in the university;. Besides there have been created for their 
exclusive benefit special courses: first, during the whole academic year (first 



112 

semester, from the 10th of November to the 28th of February; second 
semester from the 1 st of March to the 20th of June) ; then during the 
vacation (from the 1st of July to the 30th of October). These are given 
in the Faculty of Letters. They comprise practical exercises (conversation, 
reading and explanation of literary texts and of newspapers, "written exer- 
cises); courses in phonetics (with exercises in pronunciation) ; French litera- 
ture, and linguistics, courses in French history, geography and the develop- 
ment of French life and thought. During the vacation, commercial courses 
are given in addition to these. 

Besides the degrees of the state, which are given under certain conditions, 
foreign students can obtain the following degrees: 

Faculty of Law 

1 Degree of doctor of law of the University of Dijon 

2 Degree of bachelor of law of the University of Dijon 

3 Certificate of studies in legal, political or economic sciences 

4 Certificate of practical studies in law 

Faculty of Sciences 

1 Degree of doctor of sciences of the University of Dijon 

2 Degree of superior studies in oenology 

Faculty of Letters 

1 Degree of doctor of letters of the University of Dijon 

2 Degree of bachelor in French 

3 Degree in French studies 

4 Certificate in the French language 

Vacation Courses 

1 Diploma in French, first grade 

2 Diploma in French, second grade 

The committee of patronage watches over the material and moral well- 
being of the foreign students. It furnishes them hy correspondence with the 
information which they may need; it places itself at their service, from the 
time of their arrival, in matters of lodging and board; it helps them in the 
difficulties which may be encountered. In addition, meetings and excur- 
sions are provided, especially during the season of fine weather. 

The General Society of the Students of Dijon receives as members 
foreign students as well as French students. 

Dijon is situated in a very healthful and very airy region on the lowest 



113 

foothills of the Plateau de Langres, at the beginning of the plain of the 
Saone, and at the commencement of the chain of vine-covered hills which 
the Burgundians call the Cote, but which has given to the entire department 
the significant name of Cote d'Or. 

Dijon is above all a historical city, as one perceives quite at the start, 
by its narrow streets, its numerous old houses, its mansions (great private 
residences) of serene and artistic aspect, which formerly sheltered the 
families of the members of the Burgundian Parliament. 

Many monuments recall its illustrious past : the cathedral of Saint Benigne 
and the church of Notre Dame, two jewels of Burgundian Gothic art (the 
crypt of Saint Benigne is late Romanesque), the church of Saint Michel, 
which dates in the main from the Renaissance; the immense Palace of the 
Dukes, where one visits the Hall of the Estates of Burgundy, the Tour de 
la Terrasse, the Tour de Bar (both of the fourteenth century) and the 
huge kitchens of the dukes of Burgundy, etc. At the gates of Dijon is 
found the Chartreuse de Champmol, which was for the great dukes of 
Burgundy what Saint Denis was for the kings of France; there we admire 
above all the Puits de Moise, a sculptural masterpiece of the fifteenth 
century. 

The Museum of Dijon is one of the richest museums of the French 
provinces, particularly on account of its picture galleries. The archeological 
museum is joined to it. 

Besides its great historical interest, Dijon is a very lively town, with its 
population of nearly 80,000 inhabitants, its highly flourishing trade and 
its girdle of workshops and factories. 

The region of Burgundy supplies easy and pleasant excursions. Le 
Morvan (name applied to the Burgundy district) owes its particular char- 
acter to its granitic soil ; along the Cote extends the splendor of the vineyards 
so renowned; the valley of the Saone is a wide plain rich and smiling; the 
more narrow valleys of the Ouche, the Suzon, the Cure, the Cousin, the 
upper Seine and of many other rivers are attractive and often even truly 
beautiful. 

Numerous localities preserve landmarks and aspects representing all the 
epochs: Alise, the Alesia of Caesar, where scientific excavations have, so 
to speak, made a Gallo-Roman city live again ; Autun, with its Roman ruins ; 
Flavigny, the old town of medieval aspect ; Vezelay, with its Romanesque 
church everywhere famous; the Abbey of Cluny; Auxerre, Semur, which 
possess a very pronounced historical appearance ; Beaune, the city of wines, 
remarkable by reason of its magnificent hospital and its famous reredos, 
attributed to Van der Weyden, etc. ; and, belonging to a wholly different 
order of things, Creusot, whose formidable workshops have not their equal 
in France. 



114 



UNIVERSITY OF LYONS 

The University of Lyons is the most important of the French universi- 
ties after that of Paris. It is situated in an industrial and commercial 
center of the first rank, celebrated for some hundreds of years for its manu- 
factures of silk, one to which the demands of the war have given an expan- 
sion still more remarkable. The population of the city is 521,000, 
increased to 700,000 ith the immediate surroundings. 

In addition to the considerable resources offered by the university itself, 
the learned societies, the museums, the libraries, famous philanthropic insti- 
tutions, numerous schools of applied science, commercial and industrial, 
make Lyons an intellectual center rivaling the most renowned. 

Finally, the beauty and the vivacity of the city, which was formerly the 
capital of Celtic Gaul and never ceased to play an important role, and 
the magnificence of the surrounding country (Monts du Lyonnais, the Alps 
of Dauphiny) recommend Lyons to foreigners as an agreeable city and 
center of tourist travel, as "well as a source of instruction. 

Living here is easy and not expensive. Foreigners find it easy to obtain 
lodging at hotels or in families. 

The University of Lyons possesses a Faculty of Law, a Faculty of 
Medicine and of Pharmacy, a Faculty of Sciences, and a Faculty of 
Letters, commanding the services of 1 60 professors, to whom is joined an 
auxiliary corps of 1 00 teachers. In this city, essentially industrious and 
serious, students are used to assiduous labor; their successes in the great 
competitive examinations are beyond reckoning. 

The new university, inaugurated in 1 896, cost more than ten million 
francs, and from that time considerable sums have been expended for 
buildings and supplementary improvements. 

A preparatory course and vacation courses have been organized for the 
foreign students. 

Faculty of Law 
Besides the ordinary teaching, the Faculty of Law has established an 
Institute of Sociology and Social Sciences, which gives to foreigners valuable 
facilities for their initiation into the organization of French social life. Let 
us emphasize the fact that by the side of the university exists a Free Semi- 
nary of Oriental Juridical and Social Studies, which completes the instruc- 
tion of the same nature given at the university, designed for students who 
wish to explore Asiatic civilizations. The University of Lyons has in fact 
made a specialty in France of oriental studies and intellectual relations with 
the Levant and Asia. 



115 

Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy 

The great reputation of its professors has made this faculty one of the 
most famous in the world. It is necessary, moreover, especially to indicate 
the opportunities offered to students by the hospitals of Lyons, which receive 
cases from about fifteen departments. The entire southeast of France is 
tributary to the hospitals of Lyons for the cure of difficult diseases and for 
delicate surgical operations. The clinical lectures, which are very 
numerous, are not overwhelmed with students, and the students of the 
faculty can freely examine the patients and receive very profitable practical 
teaching. The resources for dissection are also considerable. 

(Its best recommendation to us in America is that Dr Carrel had his 
medical training there. J. H. F.). 

Independent of the university, there are found at Lyons a Bacteriological 
Institute, or Pasteur Institute, and a School of Military Sanitation, which 
receives specially authorized students of foreign nationality. 

Faculty of Sciences 

In addition to the courses which are found in all the French faculties, 
the Faculty of Sciences of Lyons possesses an Institute of Chemistry and a 
School of Tannery. 

The Institute of Chemistry trains heads of industries, directors, chemical 
engineers, technical and commercial employees for the different industries 
which are attached to chemistry. 

The School of Tannery, established under the patronage of the General 
Syndicate of Leathers and Hides of France, trains young persons who will 
devote themselves to trade, to manufacture in leathers and hides and to the 
associated industries. 

Faculty of Letters 

The instruction supplied by the Faculty of Letters is very rich and 
embraces subjects which are not treated in the majority of the other provin- 
cial faculties ; for example, Sanscrit and the literature of India, Egyptology, 
Arabic, Chinese and school hygiene. The historical disciplines form a 
very complete group. Many professors, fellows in history at the French 
lycees, have prepared themselves at Lyons. The antiquities of Lyonnais, 
the history of Lyons and of the region, are especially studied. There are 
two chairs of the history of art and a course in the history of music. 

Lyons possesses a great number of professional and technical schools and 
schools of art outside of the university, and celebrated museums as well as 
rich libraries. The university itself possesses an assembly of museums of 
which no other, even that of Paris, has the equal: Museum of Casts (900 



116 

specimens of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art), Geographical Museum 
rich museums of the Faculty of Medicine, and Museum of Pedagogy. 

There are at Lyons several theaters, and a Society of Grand Concerts, 
which gives performances of high reputation. 



UNIVERSITY OF GRENOBLE 

Among the university cities of France, Grenoble holds a place apart 
and merits special mention. Its situation in the heart of the Alps of 
Dauphiny and the beauty of the country which surrounds it have made 
it one of the most important centers for touring. It is partly this, too, that 
explains the attraction which it exercises for foreign students, but their 
preference arises especially from the educational creations which char- 
acterize its university, responding admirably to the needs of this special 
student patronage. 

Its Faculties of Law, of Sciences, and of Letters, its preparatory 
School of Medicine and of Pharmacy, are, like all similar establishments, 
organized and equipped with the view as much to preparation for the state 
degrees as to scientific research. But new institutes, departments and 
courses have just been added, which favor particular studies crowned by 
special diplomas, and it is this group of original creations that gives the 
University of Grenoble its distinguishing character. 

The Faculty of Law possesses an Institute of Commercial Instruction 
which gives to the students who will devote themselves to commercial 
careers, suitable instruction embracing all useful theoretical and practical 
branches. 

To the Faculty of Sciences is attached a whole group of schools of 
equal reputation in the scientific world and in the centers of industry. One 
of them is the Institute of Geology, which is especially organized for the 
study of questions concerning the region of the French Alps, and which 
has already brought together a great number of scientific men and foreign 
students. Equal favor has been manifested toward its Institute of Zoology 
and Pisciculture, which has made a specialty of the study of the fauna 
of the fresh waters of the Alpine regions. 

In addition, the noteworthy development of certain local industries has 
brought about a cooperation more close from day to day between the 
Faculty of Sciences and the industrial world, whether in the direction of 
research and technical application, in the conduct of assays, measurements 
and analyses, or finally in the formation of the necessary professional char- 
acter. Out of these spring three creations now in full prosperity and which 
the circumstances born of the war will continue to favor: the department 



117 

of electro-chemistry and electro-metallurgy, the French School of Paper- 
making, and lastly the Polytechnic Institute, which, as regards the £cole 
Superieure of the electrical industries, is one of the first French technical 
establishments. 

On its side, the Faculty of Letters, which has created the French Insti- 
tute of Florence, possesses at Grenoble itself several institutions already 
very Well known to American students. Its Institute of Alpine Geography 
has had a brilliant rise to a place beside the Institute of Geology, and 
the two offer for the study of the French Alps an assembly, altogether 
unique, of courses, collections, libraries etc. A creation not less original 
is its Institute of Phonics, especially designed and equipped for the 
theoretical and experimental study of the spoken word. Finally, side by 
side with these regular courses, the Faculty of Letters of Grenoble first 
in France constructed a course intended for foreigners who desire to perfect 
themselves in the knowledge of our country, of its language, of its literature, 
of its history, etc. This instruction, given by professors of the university 
and the lycee and by lecturers from outside whom the university invites, 
comprises special courses which are given during the entire scholastic year 
and vacation courses maintained during the summer from the 1st of July to 
the 3 1st of October. It attracted every year before the war 1500 students 
from all parts of the world. 

Another characteristic of the University of Grenoble is the variety of 
the degrees which it has created for most of the official grades and titles 
to support the particular studies which it has established. The chief of 
these university degrees are the following: doctor of law of the University 
of Grenoble, doctor of sciences of the University of Grenoble, doctor of 
letters of the University of Grenoble, degree of the Institute of Commercial 
Education, degree of electrical engineer, degree of ingenieur-papetier 
(engineer in paper-making), degree of advanced French studies, certifi- 
cate of French studies, degree of higher studies in French phonics, etc. 

Lastly, one of the organs of the University of Grenoble most appreciated 
by foreign students is its committee of patronage, which by every means 
in its power facilitates their coming to Grenoble and their residence. The 
committee has a permanent bureau, perfectly organized, furnished with 
a special room in the hall of the University. It supplies them with the 
information particularly related to their studies; it procures them facilities 
for travel; it assists them in matters of board and residence, pointing out 
the families and boarding places which are able to accommodate them 
and furnish guarantees of character; it manages for their benefit magnifi- 
cent excursions in the Alps and even to the shores of the Mediterranean. 

The committee of patronage of foreign students has gone to considerable 



118 

expense in their behalf. It has bestowed on them a library and a newspaper 
and magazine room, rooms for special courses and a laboratory of phonics. 
Buildings, embellished with gardens and a court planted with old trees, have 
been provided for their special use. Nowhere do foreign students find 
themselves surrounded by more effective and more paternal care. 



UNIVERSITY OF MONTPELLIER 

From the twelfth century Montpellier has been a center of higher studies: 
what the University of Paris was in the middle ages for theology, the 
University of Bologna for law, that of Montpellier was for medicine. 

lime has passed and institutions have been transformed. But the worship 
of science has continued to be a beloved tradition to the people of Mont- 
pellier; and several families which have numbered among their ancestors, 
professors, particularly professors of medicine, constitute a living tie between 
the present and the past. 

Montpellier is a complete university center : it has its four faculties — 
Law, Medicine, Sciences, and Letters, completed by a Higher School of 
Pharmacy. 

Outside its university foundations for higher education, Montpeliier 
possesses a Higher School of Agriculture, in which questions relating to 
viticulture are, as one would naturally think, the object of exhaustive 
studies. 

The Faculty of Medicine has in the way of annexes : ( 1 ) two great 
hospitals, the Suburban Hospital and the General Hospital; (2) Maternity 
Hospital; (3) Clinic of Ophthalmology; (4) The Bouisson-Bertrand 
Institute, founded in 1890, thanks to the generosity of Mme Bouisson, 
widow of a former dean, for the treatment of rabies and preparation of 
different serums. 

The Jardin des Plantes, the oldest in France, where all the illustrious 
botanists have taught or studied from the time of Rondelet, friend of 
Rabelais, to that of Aug. Pyramus de Candolle, is situated a few steps from 
the Faculty of Medicine and incloses the Institute of Botany with its justly 
celebrated herbariums. This near association of different scientific institutions 
one with another is one of the characteristic features of Montpellier. 

Montpellier contains two important libraries, namely, that of the uni- 
versity and that of the city. By happy chance they supplement each other. 
Each contains more than 1 30,000 volumes. We must join to them that 
of the Academy of Sciences and Letters, which, by reason of exchanges 
with the learned societies of the whole world, possesses a valuable collection 
of periodicals. 



119 

We have spoken only of institutions situated in the city itself or in the 
suburbs of Montpellier. We must add to these the zoological station of 
Cette (30 kilometers from Montpellier, half an hour by railroad), estab- 
lished thirty years ago by the well-known zoologist Armand Sabatier, and 
the botanical laboratory of Aigoual (half a day's journey from Mont- 
pellier), founded some years ago by Professor Flahault on the slopes of 
the mountain. Aigoual furnishes excursions which tourists in love with the 
picturesque, and not botanists alone, can take with interest. 

Other excursions, possessing the liveliest attractions, can be undertaken 
at Montpellier. It requires but half a day to go to Nimes and return, 
a day for the Pont du Gard, for Aigues-Mortes, a day or two for Avignon, 
Aries, Les Baux, and a day and a half for Carcassonne. Under the 
auspices of the Association of the Friends of the University and of the 
committee of patronage of foreign students, excursions are taken from time 
to time at an expense which makes them available even to modest purses. 

Much more might be said about Montpellier, but it is necessary to observe 
limitations. Besides, at this very time, under the auspices of the University 
Council, a volume is in preparation which in a concise form and at a mod- 
erate price will supply all the information desirable touching the past and 
present of the University of Montpellier. 



UNIVERSITY OF TOULOUSE 

The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest French universities. It 
goes back to the thirteenth century and has not ceased to prosper. It 
possesses four faculties: Law, Medicine and Pharmacy, Sciences, and Let- 
ters; six institutes: agricultural, chemical, electro-technological, hydrologi- 
cal, hydrobiological, and one of southern studies: also two observatories and 
a rich library. 

These different institutions were attended before the war by 3500 
students, of whom 600 were foreign. 

At Toulouse foreign students find residence agreeable and living easy, 
under a mild sfyy, in the midst of a picturesque region. The streets of the 
city reserve numerous surprises for the pedestrian. At every step he dis- 
covers an old tower, an ancient stairway, a window with cross-bars, a 
column, a precious relic of elegant or graceful outline. Romanesque 
architecture, Gothic art and the Renaissance have bequeathed to Toulouse 
numerous masterpieces which command the admiration of all visitors. More- 
over, Toulouse, situated at the foot of the Pyrenean region, is a center 
of travel. Numerous railroad lines carry tourists to the different sites 
which extend from Ax-les-Thermes to Cauterets by the way of Luchon and 



120 

Bagneres-de-Bigorre. The Alpine Club (for the central Pyrenees section) 
arranges regular excursions to the most picturesque parts of the region. 
Students can be registered in this society and share in the advantages 
granted to its members by the railroad companies. 

Arriving at Toulouse, foreign students are informed of all that con- 
cerns their home life or their school life by a bureau of information located 
at the Faculty of Letters, which is open every day except Sunday during 
the school year. The university also possesses a committee of patronage, 
of which the rector is the head, made up of consuls, prominent residents 
of Toulouse, and professors of the university. This committee exerts itself 
in smoothing the difficulties which every young man, while ignorant of the 
language and French manners, is likely to meet with in the city. This 
committee assumes the duty of corresponding with families which seek infor- 
mation regarding the work and conduct of the students ; it receives any sums 
which the families wish to entrust to it in paying the tuition of students or 
meeting their expenses. And in a general way the committee serves as inter- 
mediary between the students, their families and the university 
administration. 

It is not solely by its situation or the material advantages offered to 
foreign students that the University of Toulouse is distinguished, since there 
are few which have organizations so thoroughly scientific. To the Faculty of 
Law is joined a Practical School of Law; to the Faculty of Medicine, an 
Institute of Hydrology, in which the composition and uses of all the thermal 
riches of the Pyrenees region are subjects of study. The Faculty of 
Sciences possesses perfectly equipped technical institutes, well administered, 
in which the courses are given by professors of the Faculty of Sciences, and 
by competent engineers (railway, mail and telegraph engineers, foresters, 
professors of the Veterinary School, etc.). Lastly, the Faculty of Letters 
possesses an Institute of Southern Studies, in which more particularly the 
language, the literature, the art and the ancient institutions of southern 
France are pursued. 

Foreign students are thus assured that they "will find at the University 
of Toulouse all that they can desire, whether from the material or the{ 
educational point of view. 

UNIVERSITY OF CAEN 

The University of Caen, already nearly five centuries old, was founded 
in 1432 in the time of Henry VI, King of England, then in control of 
Normandy. It was recognized legally by Charles VII, King of France, in 
1452. Suppressed at the time of the Revolution, and restored in a different 



121 

form by Napoleon I, it actually comprises three faculties (Law, Sciences 
and Letters) and a School of Medicine and of Pharmacy. 

The city of Caen, a city of moderate size (48,000 inhabitants) is to 
be counted, because of the beauty of its monuments and the abundance of 
its historical remains, among the most interesting of France and among those 
which have best kept their ancient character. William the Conqueror and 
his wife the Duchess Matilda founded there two celebrated abbeys, which 
contain their tombs; besides these two churches one can name several 
others, of a later period, which are scarcely less remarkable. The charming 
river, the Orne, cuts through Caen, and the active port, the eighth in impor- 
tance in France, gives an air of activity to this old city. The sea is close 
by (only ten miles) with a number of well-known beaches. Near Caen 
are to be found the old cities of Bayeux (with its cathedral and its cele- 
brated tapestry), Falaise (with the chateau where William the Conqueror 
was born), Dives (from which the Norman fleet departed for the conquest 
of England), Lisieux (cathedral), Honfleur (which dominates the beauti- 
ful mouth of the Seine) . At a short distance, some of the most beautiful 
regions of Normandy are to be found, among others the valley of the Orne 
known by the name of Norman Switzerland, the Vaux de Vire and the 
Bocage. 

The climate of Caen is very mild. The city is on the main line from 
Cherbourg to Paris (two and one-half hours from Cherbourg, four hours 
from Paris) ; one can equally well come from Havre by steamboat in 
two and one-half hours. 

Faculty of Law 

The Faculty of Law of Caen has always been considered one of the first 
rank among French faculties of law and enjoys a reputation all its own. 
Several of the most eminent lawyers of modern France have been its pro- 
fessors or its students. 

This faculty gives instruction in all branches of public and private law 
and of political economy, and prepares for all the examinations of a legal 
kind. Among these examinations there is one which is intended for foreign 
students and which can be obtained by them without having passed through 
the lower grades: that is the doctor of laws of the University of Caen. 

Faculty of Sciences 
The professors of the Faculty of Sciences of Caen prepare their students 
for various university degrees, and after original research in its laboratories, 
for the degree of higher studies (for which no previous degree is demanded), 
and for the doctorate of sciences. 



122 

The Technical Institute of Normandy prepares for the degrees of 
engineer of the University of Caen (of a class designated electro-technical, 
mechanical and chemical). 

Among the laboratories of the faculty there is the laboratory of marine 
zoology, established at Luc-Sur-Mer, ten miles from Caen. 

The collections of natural history are especially complete (the her- 
barium of the botanical garden being the most important in France after 
that of the museum of Paris), because of the variety and the richness of 
the terrestrial and marine fauna and flora, and because of the interest of 
the local geology, which make the region of the University of Caen one 
of the most interesting of France. 

Faculty of Letters 

In addition to the courses which are to be found in all of the faculties 
of letters in France, that of Caen has the chair of the history of Normandy. 

The faculty prepares for various French examinations and competitions 
(bachelor of letters, various certificates, degrees of higher studies, agrege, 
doctor of the university, doctor of letters, etc.). Among these examinations, 
foreign students can obtain, without the condition of a previous degree, 
the degree of higher studies, or, conditional upon preparation in certain 
previous studies, the doctor of the University of Caen "With special mention 
of letters. Two other examinations less difficult in character have been 
designed especially for them; certificate in French studies and a diploma 
in elementary French. 

There is also given in the faculty, besides the regular courses, instruc- 
tion designed for foreigners alone. These special courses, which have 
been suspended during the war, will be again undertaken if foreign students, 
even only a small number, express a wish for them. The program is as 
follows: modern French literature, French composition, French literature 
of the sixteenth century, exercises in reading and editing French phonetics, 
written and oral translation from English and German into French and 
vice versa. 

School of Medicine and Pharmacy 
In the School of Medicine the value of the instruction given, because 
of the perfect equipment for services, has permitted certain of its students to 
take eminent rank among modern practitioners. The collections of the 
school are remarkable. 



123 



UNIVERSITY OF RENNES 
Faculty of Law 

Transferred from Nantes to Rennes in 1 735, strong in its situation neai 
the Parliament, itself one of the mcst important of provincial rank, it quickly 
attained a high degree of prosperity; suppressed in the Revolution, it was 
reborn in 1 806 ; in the course of the nineteenth century, it renewed its 
relations with its old teachers, a Lanjuinais, a Toullier, a Loysel, a fine 
tradition which is preserved even to our time. 

In 1910 it counted 980 enrolled students. At this date public authority 
transferred it to the ancient archbishop's palace, whose pride is its wain- 
scots, its furnishings and its park. From August 1914 the buildings have 
been yielded to our glorious wounded. On the restoration of peace it will 
have recovered its normal character. 

Faculty of Sciences 

The Faculty of Sciences actually affords instruction in the following 
branches: (1) theoretical sciences: mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoology, 
botany, geology, mineralogy; (2) applied sciences: physics, zoology, 
botany, applied geology, industrial chemistry, agricultural chemistry. 

The courses of applied sciences are sanctioned by the degrees of chemist 
and engineer-chemist and by the degree of chemical and natural sciences in 
agriculture. These courses are open to foreign students without the require- 
ment of a preliminary degree. 

The faculty possesses well-equipped laboratories for physics, chemistry 
and the natural sciences. The geological collections are especially rich in 
specimens of the Breton soil. The faculty possesses also a laboratory for 
agricultural analysis and an entomological station. All the laboratories 
are open to the foreign students. 

Faculty of Letters 

Since 1910 it has been lodged, beside the University Library and the 
Municipal Library, in an immense building in the midst of great gardens 
on the Place Hoche. There we especially observe six rooms for study 
supplied with special libraries for the use of the students, comprising the 
following: classical languages, French literature, history, Celtic languages, 
English literature, German literature, three laboratories attached to rooms 
for study, geography, experimental psychology and linguistics ; on the 
second floor a hall for student meetings and recreation. Among the 
studies of the faculty which are not found universally, mention may 
be made of the general bibliography and the paleography r >f documc 



124 

the paleography of Latin authors, and especially the language and litera- 
ture of the Celtic peoples (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and 
Armorica), and also experimental psychology. The collections of phono- 
grams comprise numerous Breton songs and dialogues in different Celtic 
dialects. Since 1 886 the Faculty of Letters has published a trimonthly 
review dedicated to the history of Brittany and the Celtic languages. 
The professors, instructors, lecturers and readers number 1 7. 

Besides the state degrees (baccalaureate, licentiate, degree of higher 
studies, and doctorate) the Faculty of Letters of Rennes confers five diplo- 
mas belonging to the University of Rennes, which can be obtained without 
condition of nationality, age or preliminary degrees. They are: degree of 
French language, degree of the French language and literature, degree of 
Celtic studies, higher degree of Celtic studies, doctorate of the University 
of Rennes with special mention of letters. 

During the month of August the Faculty of Letters maintains vacation 
courses at St Malo. These courses are given at the School of Rocabey, 
situated at equal distance from St Servan, St Malo and Parame. They 
comprise: a higher course (French composition, literary analysis, criticism 
of texts, study of the French vocabulary, diction, institutions of France, 
exercises in translation) ; and an elementary course (pronunciation, orthog- 
raphy, phonetics, reading, conversation, vocabulary, diction, history and 
geography). Literary lectures, common to the two courses, have for their 
subject matter modern literature, the contemporary theater, the political 
and economic condition of France. 

Examinations at the end of the courses open to students the opportunity 
to gain an elementary degree or a superior degree, conferred in the name 
of the University of Rennes and that of the French Alliance. 

These courses, instituted a short time before the war, were already in 
full operation. The war interrupted them; on the restoration of peace 
they will receive a new impulse. 

School of Medicine and Pharmacy 

The School of Medicine and Pharmacy of Rennes, entirely new-built 
in accordance with the latest requirements of science, occupies a site on the 
banks of the Vilaine. 

It dates from the eighteenth century. Throughout the century following 
it gradually grew till 1 896, the year in which it became a school of full 
practice, the only one except Nantes and Marseilles where medical studies 
are pursued and examinations taken to the end of the entire cycle of studies, 
the doctorate alone being reserved to a faculty. 



125 

As a matter of fact, its laboratories, notably that of bacteriology, bear 
comparison with the best equipped. The delegates from the foreign uni- 
versities to the beautiful celebrations of 1911 could testify to this. 

University Library of Renrtes 

The University Library of Rennes possessed on the first day of July, 
1917, 180,654 volumes, 68,266 pamphlets, 250 manuscripts, 12 incunab- 
ula. 

The Celtic section is one of the most important in existence. It com- 
prises 33 Breton mysteries, papers of M. Henri d' Arbois de Jubainville 
and some Breton dictionaries, in the way of manuscripts; facsimiles of 
the principal manuscripts of the Irish, Welsh or Scotch Gaelic language, 
numerous texts of these literatures and the most important works of criti- 
cism published in relation to them, in the way of printed treasures. 

Besides the Celtic section, the library is particularly rich in works con- 
cerning Jansenism, experimental psychology, oceanography, ichthyology, 
entomology and the history of the middle ages. 

The Municipal Library, very well furnished with Breton works or 
those concerning Brittany, completes in this respect the Celtic collections 
of the University Library. 

The Future 

A vigorous effort is being planned to associate closely the University of 
Brittany and Brittany herself. Everything points in this old province, rich 
with its glorious traditions, to a powerful industrial movement. Leaders 
of industry and commerce as well as public authorities are engaged in 
schemes for enlarging the applied science studies already instituted. 

The University of Brittany thus proclaims a triple character, as the 
center of Celtic research; the center of French culture for foreigners, 
gathered together according to the season at Rennes or by the emerald sea; 
the center of preparation for commercial and industrial studies. 



UNIVERSITY OF POITIERS 

The University of Poitiers dates from the epoch in which this city, 
Paris finding itself in the hands of the English, had become the real capital 
of France. 

Founded, by virtue of a bull of Pope Eugenius IV (May 28, 1431) 
through letters of King Charles VII, of the 16th of March 1432, granted 
at Chinon and registered at the Parliament sitting at Poitiers April 8th, it 
was intended, according to the terms of the bull, to comprehend, like the 



126 

University of Toulouse, five faculties. In fact, it counted only four, the- 
ology and canon law, civil law, medicine, and arts (sciences and letters). 

It soon acquired European fame. In the sixteenth century the cele- 
brated geographer, Sebastian Munster (about 1550), pronounced it the 
second university of France, immediately following Paris. More than four 
thousand students thronged annually to its chairs; future great parlia- 
mentarians such as Brisson, Achille de Harlay, de Thou, Cheverny; poets 
and writers like Rabelais, Ronsard, du Bellay. While the Faculty of Law 
contributed in the most brilliant fashion to the extension of Roman law, 
the Faculty of Arts, which furnished scientific and literary instruction, 
became the home of an ardent humanism with the celebrated Marc Antoine 
Muretus and Peletier du Mans. 

With the seventeenth century the decline commenced, not unattended 
with splendor during the first half, when the famous Barclay, Balzac, 
Descartes, La Quintinie followed its courses; the fall became more and 
more pronounced during the second part and in the eighteenth century. 
In 1 789 most of the colleges disappeared and the number of students was 
reduced by nine-tenths. The University of Poitiers was only the shadow 
of itself. 

It resumed its life at the beginning of the nineteenth century. One 
after another in 1804, 1806, 1845, 1854, its different faculties were 
restored. In 1 896 it was finally reorganized on foundations entirely 
modern and acquired an official teaching character. The number of its 
chairs increased; it courses were developed; its material establishment was 
improved; its collections were enriched; its library, united with that of 
the city, became, with nearly 500,000 volumes, one of the most important 
of provincial rank. In 1 9 1 4, at the moment of the declaration of war, it 
counted more than 1 300 students ; and its Faculty of Law again holds 
today the third rank among such faculties in France. 

Besides offering the ordinary courses, the faculties of the University of 
Poitiers possess complementary practical institutions. 

In law, a system for the direction of work is organized in each of the 
study years. It places young students from their entrance and during the 
entire school year under the direct control of a teacher. The Practical 
Institute of Law initiates students and persons regularly matriculated in 
actual affairs and prepares them more especially for examinations which 
conduct to the magistracy, public administration and great financial, indus- 
trial and commercial institutions. A School of Notaries prepares practical 
exercises and the different special courses indispensable to future notaries. 

Under the Faculty of Sciences young persons who intend to enter schools 



127 

of electro-technology and those who will be called later to direct agri- 
cultural work can obtain either the degree of agricultural chemistry or a 
certificate in electricity. 

The Faculty of Letters delivers a certificate of fitness for the teaching 
of French to foreign students, available to the French as well as to 
foreigners, and a certificate of literary studies reserved for foreigners. 

Those were the studies before the war. The university has elaborated 
a plan for an Institute of Economic Sciences, of which the three depart- 
ments — agricultural, commercial and industrial — are nearly ready to 
be put in operation, and are called to render the most real services to the 
youthful working population. On its side, the Faculty of Letters offers 
to give, when it next reopens, with regard to France, her geography, her 
political and literary history, her social and artistic life, an assembly of 
courses and lectures which will open to everyone, foreigners in a notable 
degree, an adequate and just acquaintance with our civilization. 

Situated on the great Paris-Madrid line, at the junction of the roads 
that lead on the west toward the ocean, on the east toward the central 
plateau, in the center of magnificent regions, Touraine, with its Renaissance 
castles, the Vendee, Aunis, Saintonge, with their groves, their salt marshes, 
their vineyards, their superb beaches from Sables d'Olonne to Royan, Lim- 
ousin, with its meadows and its chestnut woods, Berry, so delightfully 
described by George Sand, on whatever side one turns, it offers to our 
choice within a radius of from 100 to 150 kilometers the most varied 
excursions. With its neighboring forests and its river, where such good boat- 
ing is provided, with environs furrowed with wonderful roads running 
across the most varied regions, where at each step emerge to view a thou- 
sand relics of the past, Poitiers itself is one of the most picturesque cities 
in existence and one of the richest in old monuments, possessing several 
which are universally known. Living here is simple and easy. The student 
can find residence under the best conditions, either in families or in board- 
ing houses. A committee of patronage welcomes him and gives him all 
needed advice. In the Association of Students he enters on the first day 
into relations with his comrades. Everywhere he is certain of meeting the 
freest and most cordial reception. 



UNIVERSITY OF BORDEAUX 

The University of Bordeaux, because of the four faculties of which it 
is composed as well as on account of the mildness of the climate, flatters 
itself it will be able to attract some of the students who, following the 
heroic example of the sailors of the M Orleans " and of the " Rochester," 



128 

will brave the dangers of the Atlantic in order to come to pursue their 
studies in France. The rich variety of its courses, the devotion and fame 
of its masters, put the University of Bordeaux in a position to offer to our 
guests from over the sea, from the time of their arrival, the intellectual 
resources that they come to seek in our country. 

In the Faculty of Law they will find courses in Roman, French, civil, 
commercial, maritime, administrative, and criminal law, courses in civil 
procedure, in international law, both public and private, political economy, 
legislation financial, colonial and industrial. They will be able in this 
faculty to obtain the degree of doctor of law of the University of Bordeaux. 
There is a Practical Institution of Law where is to be found, in the briefs 
put in the hands of the students, the application of the principles expounded 
in the courts, which will permit them to pass from theory to practice. 

The combined Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy will put at their 
disposition theoretical and practical courses in anatomy, physiology, general 
anatomy and histology, physical biology, medical electricity, biological 
chemistry, operative medicine, experimental medicine, pathology and general 
therapeutics, pathological anatomy, therapeutics and pharmacology, 
hygiene, legal medicine and exotic pathology. To these courses of the 
medical kind are added complementary courses and conferences, which 
would be too many to enumerate in detail, as well as numerous clinics where 
there is shown upon patients practical application of the rules taught in the 
courses. (Clinics are as follows: medical, surgical, ophthalmic, infantile, 
orthopedic, obstetrical, gynecological, stomatological, mental maladies, skin 
and syphilitic diseases, diseases of the urinary organs, diseases of the larynx, 
diseases of the ears and of the nose, diseases of warm countries, etc.) Of 
the pharmaceutical kind are given courses in chemistry, general and special 
chemical analysis, toxicology, biological chemistry, physical pharmaceutics, 
natural history, pharmacy and materia medica. There are also given prac- 
tical exercises, complementary courses and conferences. Our guests from 
over the sea can attain a degree of doctor of the University of Bordeaux 
(mention in medicine or in pharmacy) or degrees of pharmacist or of 
surgeon dentist, or of colonial physician of the University of Bordeaux. 

The Faculty of Medicine of Bordeaux has, because of the scientific 
attainments and the fame of some of its professors, been able to organize 
advanced courses in branches of medical science which these professors 
teach (medical electricity, oto-rhino-laryngology, for example). These 
courses attract not only students, but also teachers from other universities. 

In the Faculty of Sciences the American students will find courses in 
general mathematics, in infinitesimal calculus, mechanics, astronomy, general 
physics, experimental physics, physics (P. C. N.), applied physics, min- 



129 

eralogy, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, indus- 
trial chemistry, physiological chemistry, agricultural chemistry, zoology, 
animal physiology, comparative anatomy, embryology, botany, vegetable 
physiology and geology. There are laboratories for the purposes of each 
one of these courses. The students will be able to obtain degrees from 
the state (certificate P. C. N., bachelor, degree in higher studies, doc- 
torate), or of the university: doctorate of the University of Bordeaux with 
mention in sciences, the degree of chemical engineer for the preparation of 
which there is annexed to the Faculty of Sciences a school of chemistry 
as applied to industry and to agriculture. 

The industries of the locality and the needs of local commerce have in 
addition determined the creation of special laboratories which give to the 
Faculty of Sciences of Bordeaux its particular character: for example, 
the laboratory of chemistry as applied to the industry of resins, the labora- 
tory for experiment with colonial products. An agronomical and oeno- 
logical station is, after the same fashion, attached to the faculty. 

In the Faculty of Letters, the guests from beyond the sea will find 
courses in the Greek language and literature, in the Latin language and 
literature, grammar, comparative grammar, French literature, language and 
literature of the southwest of France, German language and literature, 
English language and literature, studies in Spanish, Italian language 
and literature, geography, colonial geography, archeology, history of art, 
ancient history, history of the middle ages, modern history, history of 
Bordeaux and of the southwest of France, sciences auxiliary to history, 
paleography, philosophy, history of philosophy, social science. They will 
be able to obtain the degrees of the state (bachelor, degree in higher 
studies, doctorate), or of the university (doctorate of the University of 
Bordeaux with mention in letters). 

The certificate in French studies and the degree of university studies 
are especially designed for foreigners who wish to obtain evidence of their 
French studies and certification of their aptitude to teach French in their 
own country. 

The well-stocked library and museums (Museum of Anatomy and of 
Anthropology, Museum of Ethnography and of Colonial Studies of the 
Faculty of Medicine, Museum of Archeology in the Faculty of Letters) 
complete the resources placed by the University of Bordeaux at the dis- 
position of its guests. They will also be able to use in addition the other 
libraries and museums of the city of Bordeaux. 

Lastly, special courses in French and French literature, organized under 
the patronage of the university by a committee of reception for foreign 
students, will permit the American students who do not have, on their 
5 



130 

arrival in France, sufficient acquaintance with the French language to 
prepare themselves to pursue better the courses which we have enumerated. 
The Franco-American committee is prepared to give information to 
Americans concerning lodging at different prices and to furnish for them 
recreations such as excursions and various sports. A general association 
of men students and general association of women students are prepared 
to receive their comrades from over the sea whose hearts they I?now already 
beat in unison with theirs. 



(I was not able to visit the Universities of Besancon, Mar- 
seilles-Arx and Clermont-Ferrand. This alone accounts for the 
omission of special mention of them here. The University of 
Lille was behind the German lines and one does not know what 
to say of her, save to express the hope that she will emerge with 
a face as fair and placid as her cherished Tete de Cire. 

There are many of whose courtesy and assistance I should 
like to speak in detail, but I must at least mention the names of 
a few who have been most helpful, beside our American 
Ambassador and others of the Embassy, the French officials and 
University Recteurs. These are Mr. James H. Hyde, Mr. 
August F. Jaccaci, the men of the Maison de la Presse, and the 
young American, Mr. William Gorham Rice, who accompanied 
me in the early part of my visit and who has recently won the 
croix de guerre. And I must acknowledge, with special grati- 
tude, my indebtedness to Monsieur Petit-Dutaillis, the Inspector 
General of Public Instruction, the agreeable companion in some 
of my journeys, and a special liason officer between the 
universities and schools of France and those of America. 

The last word must be in thanks to those who gave the first 
assistance: the Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable Franklin 
K. Lane, and the French Ambassador, Monsieur Jusserand, 
whose letters opened all official doors in France at my coming.) 



